Moon Eaters zine release party is this Saturday, June 30 at the Dorchester Art Project, 2:00-6:00pm and I could not pass up the opportunity to give complements to the prolific zinester, Lily Xie, as well as ask a handful of questions to all the members of Moon Eaters, Ailin Lu, Crystal Bi and Lily Xie, about launching their zine.
Deb Step (DS): Lily Xie, I’m a big fan and frequently think about Utopia Is. Your positivity and curiosity comes through in your zines so it’s very exciting that you are building a community and platform for APIA femmes. What is Moon Eaters and how did it start? Who is involved?
Ailin Lu, Crystal Bi and Lily Xie (Moon Eaters): Moon Eaters is an art collective and zine for APIA femmes to build community and share their narratives through art and printed media. It was started by three artists, illustrators, and writers – Lily Xie, Ailin Lu, and Crystal Bi – who saw a lack of diversity and representation of APIA femme and queer folks in media. We wanted to highlight local APIA artists and makers in the Boston arts scene. It was really neat to start this and see how many folks are making art. It made the art scene feel less lonely and we wanted to create a space for our and other APIA femme’s experiences.
DS: Why did you choose to make a zine as a part of the platform? Any other media you wish to use (or are creating already)? Do you have plans to make the zine a serial and release one monthly, quarterly, yearly?
Moon Eaters: We chose to make a zine as part of the platform because we liked the idea of self-publishing something you could hold in your hands. We didn’t feel like we had a platform for our artwork so we had to create one ourselves. It was also an accessible medium. Lily had already been making zines and had been selling her work in markets and comic book events around Boston. From these events, we felt like we had a good network of makers and organizers that we could learn from and who could connect us to an audience. We also wanted to use up Crystal’s print credit at MassArt before the end of the semester.
DS: Anything coming up for Moon Eaters besides the zine release party?
Moon Eaters: We will definitely be present in future markets for art/zines.
DS: Any music performances or visual art you would like to announce for Saturday?
Moon Eaters: We’re super lucky to have Ava Sophia Dudani, a South Asian singer and songwriter performing at the event.
Crystal Bi will be creating a soundscape you can eat (food will be served at the end of the performance).
Kayti Lahsaiezadeh will be reading poetry.
We will also be displaying the artwork of a number of APIA artists and zine-makers. Below is a description for Saturday’s event with link to event page:
♀?? Come party with us!! We’re releasing volumes 1 & 2 of the MOON EATERS zine and we want to celebrate all our amazing zine contributors. Plus, the POC zine table will be back. It’s gonna be funnnn, come thru come thru. Saturday, 6/30, 2:00-6:00pm at Dorchester Art Project (by Fields Corner stop).
