#itme15

Rachel Tandon, Elise Mortenson, Fran Brauning, January 2015

6.5” x 9.75” x 2”

Sculpted objects, digitally printed zine, tumblr website

#itme15 was a collaborative zine resulting from a prompt to explore the boundaries of what classically constitutes a zine. Working on the topic of identity, we chose to incorporate an event into the zine generation process, having audience participation drive the content of the zine. After our initial brainstorming on the topic, we realized that identity is a topic to be determined by individuals themselves, and that everyone has a different aspect of their identity that they identify with first. We wanted to foster an event that gave people a platform to express their identity without restrictions or categories to answer.

We hosted an event providing people with clay and many other assorted materials from which to sculpt small representations of their identity. We asked each participant to sculpt a small object and write a short statement about it, the only restriction being that the object must fit within a certain size box.

The event was a success, with over 40 people participating and contributing objects to the collection. The objects ranged from a remake of someone’s favorite baseball cap to abstract representations of the conversations a person has with himself in his head. Once the event was over, we documented all of the objects and statements and paired them with our introduction to identity and the ideas behind the event in a printed zine. The physical zine, which comes in a box containing six physical objects from the party, has a limited circulation, and we created a tumblr page with similar content for wider audience reach.

The tumblr address: http://itme15risd.tumblr.com/