Join us for an interactive workshop for Zines Now!, a year-long initiative showcasing the history of zines as an art form, highlighting future possibilities for the making and distribution of zines, and facilitating the expression of students’ and community members' passions and priorities now. Zines Now! is generously supported by the UVA Arts Council. This workshop, Zines for Change, is presented in partnership with the UVA Center for Health Humanities and Ethics by FusionLab Arts Research Fellow, Jess Walters.

Can expressing and exchanging our experiences through zines provoke changes in perception, convention, or policy?

A zine is a self-published, handmade, or small press booklet that is distributed for the purpose of sharing ideas, experiences, and perspectives, often of historically marginalized or underrepresented subcultures. In analyzing and discussing examples of zines depicting experiences around disability and other contemporary social justice movements, the “Zines for Change” workshop explores the innumerable ways that zines can be used as tools for advocacy.

Jess Walters is a disabled, neurodivergent, nonbinary person who blends their personal and professional experiences to model inclusive practices, advocate for systemic interventions, and inspire social changes around perceptions of disability. In their advocacy work, Walters has used their zines to visually express the struggle for gender equality, articulate legislative asks supporting kidney patients for Congressional representatives, and communicate barriers to access to healthcare for transgender and gender diverse patients for the National Academies of Science Engineering and Medicine.They also lead zine-making workshops to empower others with the skills to make zines as a cathartic creative practice as well as an avenue to connect with others.

Following an introduction to zines as advocacy-tools and brief discussion around the variety of approaches and styles from different zine samples, workshop participants will be prompted to create their own zine that inspires or informs around an idea or cause they are passionate about. Jess will demonstrate how to fold a single sheet of paper into an 8-page mini-zine and materials will be provided* for each person to fill out their zine in response to the prompts. By physically engaging with the phenomenon of making and sharing zines, participants will experience first-hand the extraordinary potential of zines as catalysts for connection, social change, and personal growth.

*All instructions and materials required zine-making will be provided, including items from Jess’ personal collage library. However, if participants would like to bring photographs, books, magazines, or other paper materials specific to their interests or passions to collage with, they are invited and encouraged to do so. ​

Jess Walters (they/them) is a mixed-media artist, Board Certified Patient Advocate (BCPA) and independent scholar from Charlottesville, Virginia. They have a rare genetic disorder that caused late-onset deafness in adolescence and kidney failure as a young adult. In 2018, Walters received a kidney transplant at UVA Health, where they currently serve as an inaugural Arts Research Fellow at the Center for Health Humanities and Ethics in the School of Medicine. Their work focuses on the intersections of art and health and they strategize to improve accessibility accommodations in creative and cultural arts spaces to cultivate inclusive opportunities for community engagement.

Walters has been advocating for health equity and access to care for more than 12 years, serving on panels, giving talks, leading workshops, and offering their perspective on how to improve quality of life for patients and their families. They serve on the Rare Disease Advisory Panel for the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and regularly participate in kidney patient summits with the National Kidney Foundation. Walters’ artwork has been featured at the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, Second Street Gallery, and New City Arts initiative, and they are a founding member of Charlottesville ZineFest. 

Visit JessWaltersArt.com for more information.

NOTE: Parking in Central Grounds Garage is $1.50 per hour after 5pm. Culbreth Parking Garage is free after 5pm.