(un)productive

zine project published through Open Space, 2020

Artists:

Whess Harman, Dre Gutierrez Reyes, Reid Urchison, Cassia Powell, Laveen Gammie, Kate Wallace Fry, Zoë Joyall, Rowan Mackenzie Zouboules

Cover by Dani Neira, risograph printed by the Riso Collective

(UN)PRODUCTIVE is a zine project that addresses the entanglement of artmaking and capitalist notions of productivity and labour, particularly while in a pandemic. Attempting to pull away from artistic pressures around maximizing time, profitability, and production, we asked eight artists to play with what (un)productive art means to them.

The project seeks to stimulate conversation and practice around anti-capitalist modes of productivity in a playful and self-reflexive way: do unfinished napkin doodles and bad fridge poetry become productive once published? Does this push the boundaries of productivity, or uphold them? At what point does artmaking for pleasure become labour? How can we create alternate systems where self-worth is no longer tied to productivity?

The zine will be hand-delivered between the artists' homes throughout the month of August, functioning as a collective sketchbook/journal. In early September, 150 copies will be distributed amongst the community for free, with 75 copies available via mail.