archives | placemaking by crystal melville
place culture zines
north halifax demography
halifax treasure the anchor archive zine library
Place was not only the anchor missing from my life but an anchor missing from others’ lives as well’ 1 — Alan Thein Durning
Different industries have shaped North America’s northwestern geography and culture, including the Maritimes. However, despite the many place-forming industrial sectors in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it is housing development that is having a dramatic effect on the demographics, geography and culture in its north end district. Luckily there are several cultural anchors in the north end that encourage dialogue about these transitions and locate the specific culture of this area. The Anchor Archive Zine Library is one of these treasured places, located inside a little red, wood-shingled house, recently renamed the Roberts Street Social Centre. Once abandoned, now surrounded by businesses and the only functioning house on the street, its architecture reflects the history of the area. Its present status stands in contrast to the redevelopment of cheap and abandoned houses into condominiums and upscale businesses currently replacing and displacing the culture of this area. Artists, students and families that had settled in this once affordable neighbourhood are now subjected to inflating rents and conse- quently forced to move to other communities. The culture of the Roberts Street Social Centre resides in its linoleum floors, 60’s curtains and pink walls. Salvaged furniture, cardboard zine holders and colourful screen-printed embellish- ments in the Zine Library exhibit the ever-changing DIY/youth/ art culture of those that use the space. The Anchor Archive Zine Library preserves the architectural and interior heritage of the area, and also contributes to an impressively expanding zine culture. * Zine production preserves key elements of culture: in 1995, 16-year-old Sarah Evans in Ottawa picks up a zine about music and culture on the east coast. Captivated then by how the zine maker
presented the east coast independent music scene, Evans explains why she is still drawn to zines: ‘they are raw and unedited, with no rules and a variety of styles and content that reflect people’s pas- sions and interests. They offer different stories and voices’. In 2005 Evans moved into the Roberts Street house with Sonia Edworthy, and the two started an informal zine library in their living room. Now, neither Evans nor Edworthy live at the house, and the space they occupied is used to offer other services, such as a collectively run screen-printing studio, a multi-purpose space for meetings and workshops, and an artist and zine-making residen- cy. The collection circulates over 1500 zines. Evans points out that ‘zines are now found in American public and research libraries’. While zines and zine culture have progressed over the years, there still remains a strong cultural consistency of expression and style — different cultural groups use zines to express political oppression and to challenge the status quo. Technological transi- tions have made production and distribution more accessible and efficient, and zines continue to give voice and empowerment to social movements and underrepresented cultures outside main- stream media. Anchor Archive members further extend these tools of empowerment to marginalised groups through zine-making workshops at schools, hospitals, women and youth shelters and additional social service agencies. The Zine Library and the stories in the zines cannot be replaced . The Anchor Archive Zine Library, a cultural treasure in Halifax’s transitioning north end neighbourhood, voices culture through the circulation of thousands of zine gems across the city. Current- ly, the library is working on an on-line cataloguing system, which can be seen at http://robertsstreet.org ~
1 Durning, Alan Thein. This Place on Earth, home and the practice of permanence . Seattle: Sasquatch Books, 1996. p17
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