"Pick up for you?"
A downloadable riso zine
What do you pick up when you are missing something?
A single-page zine reflecting on the trash people throw on the street or take to the recycling center in a city far, far away from where I grew up.
Originally collaged and written on A3, printed in red and purple with a Risograph printer by the good people at Spektakel. Written English, background text in German.
When the stars aligned, I had to say 'yes'.
Did I want to print something with a Risograph Printer even though I am not a visual artist? Yes. Did I want an excuse to make a zine? Also yes.
Did some hyper-capitalist data harvesting algorithm show me a free risograph zine workshop in my area, hosted as part of the Zine Fest I wanted to go to, anyway? Darling, you already know how this zine was made.
Here is a question for you:
When you are down, what do you pick up?
I want to say:
"My Notebook! I write!"
or maybe even
"Myself! My friends, my work! My favorite hobby!"
... or something healthy, positive and aspirational like that.
When in truth, the reality of my "pick-ups" seems closer to that of the people around me:
Down because I am tired?
Coffee, tea.
Bored?
There is your phone. There is some food.
Lonely, tired, hungry and missing your friends?
Well, tough shit, love, it's three in the morning, everyone is asleep and the people who aren't haven't texted you back in a year. The next 7-Eleven is a 30 minute Metro ride away and the gas station is not much closer. Ugh.
But looking at what we all drop down...
...it is a little comforting that many people around me seem to pick up similar things. Coffee, tea. Yummy food with their friends. The phone in their hands.
I guess it gives me a semblance of community that has been hard to replace.
It all feels like sludge, what we pick up and why we do it.
Needing coffee to stay awake, or tea to get well so we can study and work and be responsible and be good members of society, because even mandatory community requires participation, willing or not.
But at least we're trudging the sludge together, even if alone.
Download
Install instructions
To make a physical version of this zine, print the file "Pick-up-for-you_V2.pdf"(Pick up for you - Print Version) on A4, A3 or with a "fit to paper size" setting.
To fold and assemble, follow the standard 1-page zine procedure, like shown here:
https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Zine#Folding-and-Cutting-the-Zine
The front and back cover are in a different place, but the process is the same! See the diagram here:
| P6 | P5 | P4 | P3 |
| BC | FC | P1 | P2 |
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