It seems all in the childhood did books of their own drawings. Then they were carefully guarded by parents, and you moved them touchably in decades. It turns out that such homemade magazines – a whole cultural era. Of course not massive, to some extent elitist, because such things are made by real romances, dreamers or simply talented people

Once in the distant 1910s, the American Howard Phillips Lovecraft, known as the author of the iconic myths about Cthulhu, initiated an exchange of thematic amateur publications between their members. For years after thirty, Louis Russell Shoveen, an amateur journalist, introduced the term “zin”, which called the amateur small magazines or photo albums. In Soviet times it was called “samizdat”, which did not make the product less popular.
Actually, this is the story of the birth of a cultural phenomenon called “zin”. Simply put, zin is a laconic simple way to convey content with clear symbols, images, a small story. And this is an opportunity to tell about things important for you or for the world. In Ukraine, zin is not such a rare phenomenon: last year in Odessa even a Zinergia fair was held. And although in Zhytomyr there are online versions of the wisdom, the presentation of the printed was the first time. Everything else took place in the form of an interactive exhibition.
Since Zhitomir unquestionably associates with cosmic subjects, the authors dreamed about the philosophical theme of the role of personality in history. And if you think that it is pathetic, we can confidently state that it can be fun and creative. That’s exactly what happened in the memorial house-museum SP The Queen, who became the project’s endpoint and place of presentation.
A group of Zhytomyr photographers including Oleksii Lubyagin, Natalia Prokopenko, Vasyl Slavinsky, Martyn Bogdanovsky, Igor Donchenko, Polina Slidsevska, Marina Ihnatiuk, Yurii Bondarchuk, Tetyana Pavlovskaya and Pavlo Khodakovsky collected photos of “space” of Zhytomyr from their own collections, then artists and the designers and the team published on its own money the first “space” zin about Zhytomyr. Also, “space” stickers were made, thanks to which each visitor to the presentation was able to personally change the face of the city.
“Standard exhibitions are not interesting. And here people can see zin, Zhytomyr and space. There are so many cosmic objects in Zhytomyr that people do not even notice them sometimes. From here we used collage, trying to make it all fun and funny “, – says designer Nikita Asauliak, one of the organizers of the presentation.
Artist-designer Irina Lysenko, co-organizer of the exhibition, says: “This project has ripped” this project for almost a year, but it was so that we did it for the City Day. It was easy to determine the exhibition space: of course, the Museum of Astronautics. Well, here progressively relate to a new and unusual. It is very cool that the presentation and the interactive exhibition took place precisely in the memorial home of the museum of Koroliova, this is quite logical. Actually, the idea of our mind and the interactive exhibition is that each one of us can change the city in which you live, for the better. And this must be done! ”
It turns out that deep and serious social messages can be communicated in a fun and bright way. We can frankly say that the atmosphere was really wonderful, and everyone present could feel her homely, childish and mysterious.
Those who were not able to get to the discovery have the opportunity to make their own “space” contribution and turn around in the coziness of the museum hall: the exhibition will work for two more weekends. So, do not waste time, change your perspective on life and your own city along with Zhitomir’s “cosmic” dream!

Translated by Aliona Matushevich