ARHT6936: Biennales, Triennales and Contemporary Art

Dr Yvonne Low

Unit Coordinator

The zines shown here were made by students in ARHT6936: Biennales, Triennales and Contemporary Art. Across the semester, the class moved through the Biennale of Sydney — its galleries at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the vast industrial shell of White Bay Power Station, and the conversations and questions that gathered along the way. This edition of the Biennale took its title, Rememory, from Toni Morrison: a word for the way the past refuses to stay past, surfacing in objects, places, and bodies long after the events that made it. The works here respond to that provocation. Some trace the contested history of the Biennale itself; others sit with a single work or a single room and look slowly. They ask who gets to speak, who is remembered, and on whose terms inclusion is offered.

The assignment asked students to translate their research into the form of a zine — where they turn their observations into an argument, offering their critical perspectives on the Biennale as a cultural phenomenon. The zine is fitting for this. Born from feminist counter-publishing and DIY knowledge-sharing, it has always been a way of making meaning outside official channels. What is striking across these works is their range and their care: a zine that tucks seeds and a sewing kit into its pages, so that memory might be carried out and replanted; loose cards that reveal further visual analysis on their reverse; fold-outs and miniature frames; native plants sketched and labelled over historical maps of Sydney. Several draw directly on the students’ own field notes, conversations with visitors and gallery staff, so that personal and institutional voices sit side by side.

This exhibition was developed in collaboration with Anne Goodfellow, Cultural Collections Librarian, and with Rare Books and Special Collections. Before making their own work, students spent time with the University Library’s zine collection, learning from a rich archive of independent publishing, and developing their ideas in a zine-making workshop.

You can see the physical zines at the Schaeffer Library exhibition until end of August 2026.

Schaeffer Library, RC Mill’s Building, The University of Sydney, Camperdown NSW 2050
Monday to Friday, 9am - 6 pm
All Welcome

Acknowledgements and thanks: Special thanks to the Schaeffer Librarians, and Dr Katrina Grant and the Visual Understanding Initiative for supporting the physical and digital exhibition respectively.

Student authors of Digital Zines:

Aleisha Knight
Alex Michael
Alyssa Alas
Amy Malek
Danica Dai
Kate Buchanan and Sam Lawson
Injee Nam and Anna Li
Cheryl Chen
Jessica Liu
Chloe Shen
Rachel Chau
Xiang Li and Sisi Ran
Xinyue Tu
Xiaowei Song
Zihang Fei and Philia Zhang