Social Justice Zine-Making Celebration
Reading the Migration Library (RML) publications were exchanged –and even created—at an end-of-semester zine party put on by the Social Justice Community of Practice (SJ CoP) at Emily Carr University. The SJ CoP is facilitated by ECU faculty members Banafsheh Mohammadi and Hyein Lee. The event was a fun making-time that resulted in the publication of…
Three Generations Happy Family
The publication Three Generations Happy Family by Jenie Gao takes the form of a three-section menu to mimic those found in Chinese food restaurants operated by immigrant families like Gao’s. The contents of this one recount in a timeline the family’s origins in Taiwan during rice rationing, and their lives as family restaurant owners in…
Brandon Leung’s Houseboy Series
The photographer and archivist Brandon Leung got to know RML well through the community folding/binding events that took place at the Emily Carr Library in 2024. Since then, he has generously mailed to RML headquarters a set of photos from his ongoing photo project, Houseboy. The two sets of photos (three in colour and three…
Gingersnaps Mail Art
Although the mail art of RML contributor Ginger Mason (also known in mail art as Ateliergingembre and Gingersnaps) has been documented in this Exchange Gallery already (here and here), it keeps arriving and it keeps inspiring! In 2025 it has included the collaged artistamps and colour flutter books pictured below, among other joyful items. The…
Geraniums, a Blue Glass Cat, and Weather Exchanged in the Frontyard
On February 24 2025, Frontyard Projects, an artist-led centre in the Marrickville neighbourhood of Sydney, was the site of a single-table “Mini Zine Social” presented by the makers (and swimmers) behind “Small Press Swim Club”. They also hosted a presentation by me about mail art and exchange economies in the projects Renegade Library, bosque brotante…
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Migration Storytelling (Research and Art)
L to R – Christina Clark-Kazak, Lois Klassen, Soodi Joolaee, Anniya Asrani, Erin Goheen Glanville, Francisco Fernando Granados Reading the Migration Library is a project that takes an unbounded approach to migration as well as creative methods. Aside from the method of making a book-like publication that is constrained to the size of a quarter-letter…
Keep this: making mail art
Five years ago we were trying to get our heads around the horrors of a pandemic that was overwhelming cities’ capacities to bury victims, caused health officers to weep in press conferences, and saw hospitals expanding emergency departments into tent-covered parking lots. We wondered how long seniors and teens could endure “social distancing.” What would…
Alternate Exposures
“A calendar you are not allowed to keep” seems the perfect exchange for Reading the Migration Library publications, which you are not allowed to buy. The calendar, An Invitation to Notice, is an innovative desk calendar that artist Brenna Maag has just produced and released in an edition of 400. That is a big number…
Zine Exchange at SAFE
During our artists-in-residence at the McLoughlin Gardens cottage in the Comox Valley, we (Deanne Achong and Lois Klassen) had a chance to attend the “Art Opening + Artist Talks” for the exhibition SAFE at the Comox Valley Art gallery (CVAG). The title for the exhibition and its accompanying zine includes this byline, Holding space for…
Books Exchanged for Reading at McLoughlin Gardens
Deanne Achong and Lois Klassen were hosted as artists-in-residence at the McLoughlin Gardens cottage for a wonderful week at the beginning of October (September 29 to October 6). The week involved luxurious cabin time filled with long-gazing at the north Salish Sea, long-wandering on fern-lined forest trails and empty dirt roads, folding accordion pages and…
RML3: Undercurrents and Folds Events
Reading the Migration Library, a long-running artist project that has produced events and publications in the theme of migration and displacement, has just released its third and final series called RML3: Undercurrents and Folds.
Words exchanged at Word Vancouver
The official launch of the series RML3: Undercurrents and Folds took place at Word Vancouver Festival on September 28 at UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver. WV has been around for years as a free destination for those with book and comic passions, including writers and publishers who can find each other there to talk…
Artist Book Reading and Talk at CVAG
The Comox Valley Art Gallery will be hosting a reading on Thursday, October 3rd, with artists Lois Klassen and Deanne Achong. The artists are conducting creative research and development during an artist-in-residency at the McLoughin Gardens. Lois and Deanne will be at CVAG at 6:30pm on Thursday, October 3, to read from RML3: Undercurrents and…
Announcing, RML3: Undercurrents and Folds
We are excited to announce the upcoming release of RML3: Undercurrents and Folds. Lois Klassen and Deanne Achong are excited to announce that they have begun work on phase three of Reading the Migration Library, or RML3: Undercurrents and Folds. This phase will result in publications produced collaboratively together with six artists.
Mail Art Report: 3 books
So far in 2024 three publications have landed in my hands. Fawn Daphne Plessner recently left a copy of the exhibition brochure Near Dwellers as Legal Beings in my work mail box. It is from a 2023 exhibition at The Tree Museum & Street Road Artists Space (Cochranville, PA) that is part of a year-long…
The Legacy of British Home Children
The 2023 production and release of Ginger Mason’s Henry Frederick Terry (1907-1980) ~ I Remember is linked to Franci Louann’s Charlie Henry Workman (1897-1976) ~The Unspoken (2017). Both publications recount the impact of the British Home Children program on the families of the authors. For Ginger Mason working on the RML publication offered her an…
Happy Exchanges from 37 Looe Street
In September, 2023 the RML project was featured in a week-long artist residency and artist talk and book exchange event at 37 Looe Street, Plymouth, UK. 37 Looe Street is a wonderful small-scale arts centre in an historic site that once held a larger regional art centre and vegan restaurant. Angela Piccini and Sef Penrose…
Presenting on Labour Day : Henry Frederick Terry (1907-1980) ~ I Remember by Ginger Mason
On Labour Day, Canada’s complicity with child immigrant labour is the theme at Reading the Migration Library headquarters. We are busy assembling the latest community publication, “Henry Frederick Terry (1907-1980) ~ I Remember” by Ginger Mason (Victoria). Here’s how it starts: “From the 1860s to the late 1930s the Government of Canada as well as…
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