The Women’s Center hosts collaborative ’zine project to celebrate bodies

The Women’s Center is hosting a collaborative ‘zine project to celebrate Women’s History Month in March.

The ‘zine will feature student-made poetry, photography and essays among other ideas to correlate with the theme of “bodies.”

According to graduate assistant Brie Shaun-Kearns, the Women’s Center’s director, Liz Steinborn-Gourley, pitched this theme to be open-ended and unrestrictive. Steinborn-Gourley did not respond to request for comment.

“I think it’s a broad enough topic that people can come in no matter what and share what their experiences are,” Shaun-Kearns said. “Really whatever they are open and willing to share with us and others about themselves and can provide a representation for someone else.”

‘Zines are a collaborative, small-circulation work of content ranging from text to images to artwork. Shaun-Kearns said the Women’s Center chose to create a Women’s History Month ‘zine because they have history within the early feminist movement due to their ability to be secretly distributed to a limited audience. 

Taboo topics such as birth control and safe sex practices were often the focus of these early efforts. Now, in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, this ‘zine’s theme stemmed from similar issues of its predecessors.

“I think a lot of it started with conversations of the overturning of Roe v. Wade,” Shaun-Kearns said. “Especially conversations with students about pregnancy and becoming pregnant or being able to be pregnant and sort of the rhetoric that was used for a lot of it. As well as conversations that I’ve had with students on my end about gender and transness.”

Shaun-Kearns hosted a workshop with students creating content for the ‘zine Tuesday and workshopped ideas with them.

Syd Berggren is a poetry writer who self-published their book, “Love Letters,” through Amazon. They plan to write about five poems exploring their gender expression.

“I’m probably going to mainly be focusing on poems, just because that is where I’m most comfortable. It’s my strong suit,” Berggren said. “Thinking about my body and my relationship with my body, a lot of that comes with thoughts about gender for me. So I have a couple poems about dysphoria, about feeling more masculine or more feminine.”

Amanda Borgmann was also in attendance and plans to create poetry as well. 

“It was an opportunity. I’ve never really been involved with anything on campus so far, so I thought it would be a good way to try something new,” Borgmann said.

The ‘zine remains open to new student contributions. The completed form will be a PDF shared online via social media, and a printed version will be kept in the Women’s Center. The Women’s Center is located in Centennial Student Union 218 and can be reached via email at wcenter@mnsu.edu.

Header photo: Students gathered in the Women’s Center to discuss the upcoming ‘zine to be released in March for Women’s History Month. The ‘zine will feature a variety of students works that correlate with the theme “bodies.” (Dylan Long/The Reporter)

Write to Carly Bahr at caroline.bahr@mnsu.edu