LỒ LỘ RISO ZINE
Self-Publication / Illustration
Role: Designer / Illustrator
Print: SAIC Service Bureau
Tools: Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign
This zine was designed to be marked by the remnant of you, and you, and you.
The thought of making this zine started growing on me when I spent the summer of 2022 back home in Vietnam. As a queer person and an only son, I found myself struggling having to (again) navigate against many preconceptions about gender expression, ones that come from friends, family, and strangers; ones that I didn’t really question when I was seventeen, and ones that I can’t exactly address with tangible words. That was when I resorted to illustrating. All eight illustrations throughout the zine, drawn over the summer, were my visual interpretations of my own gender expression, both internally and externally.
I chose to work with risograph primarily because of its nature: riso ink never really dries.
In my past experience working with this printing technique, I remember being told to be careful when handling prints with black riso ink to avoid smudging. It’s easy to leave your fingerprints and it takes a long time to clean up. I always wondered if I could somehow make use of this very characteristic of riso ink to create something that can tie tactility with concepts.
This curiosity resulted in the two hidden spreads printed in black. White texts of homophobic slurs and similar sayings I heard my whole life were scattered on each spread against the black background. In order to read or make out the words, you have to actually interact with the black surface, unfold and open, sometimes smudge and smear the other pages without noticing.
