This month we talk to Savana Ogburn author of Identity Crisis for the monthly Zinesters in LCF Special Collections.
Name and location..
My name is Savana Ogburn and I’m from Atlanta, Georgia.
How long have you been making zines for?
I’ve been making zines for about 3 years now!
What do you like to create zines about?
I typically use zines as a way to distribute and chronicle my photography and collage work. All of the zines I’ve made have been mostly about identity, creativity, or documentation of my life in some way.
What is your favourite zine/comic/book?
I can’t choose just one! I recently picked up I Love You, Rainbow by Lauren Poor, which is a gorgeous art zine. I also adore Hell(o) by Miriam Marlene Waldner (a photography and collage zine- it’s a perfect little hardcover book), and SALT Food Zine by Mitchell Kuga. I recently read an issue about performativity in the food service industry and it was so interesting!
Tell us a bit more about your creative process..
As far as zines go, I typically just choose the images that I’ve taken that I think fit together and create collages and/or a cover based on them. Nothing too wild! For Identity Crisis, I wanted a way to distribute the work as it is a series I’m really proud of, so I shot a cover inspired by the concept, wrote an artist statement, and printed it all in a zine! I’ve recently created a second volume of Identity Crisis and plan to keep releasing the images in zine-form in the future.
What does it feel like to have your zine in the London College of Fashion Library’s Special Collections?
It feels great- I’m happy that there are organizations that are excited about zine culture and dedicated to preserving it!
What influenced Identity Crisis?
The idea for Identity Crisis came when a professor saw some of my self portraiture and encouraged me to research Cindy Sherman. I ended up really connecting with Sherman’s work at the same time that I was getting interested in drag/queer culture, and it just seemed really obvious to me that I should be getting into drag as a part of my art. The series has expanded over the last few months and has become my favorite thing to work on- drag allows me to explore a lot of themes artistically that I wouldn’t otherwise. It’s also given my work a sense of humor, I think, which is also a big part of Identity Crisis.
What one piece of advice would you give UAL students about zine making?
Do absolutely whatever you want. The best thing about zines, to me, is that the whole point of them is just to put a piece of your brain into the world in physical form. They don’t have to be perfect!
Links to Savana’s work: website / instagram / etsy
