はちゃめちゃ。。。ぽわわん。。。
Come and meet us at the 2026 Twin Cities Zine Fest!
METEOR GARDEN (2026) - Kai & Sachiko
Concept Photo
Say someone dropped a needle. Say it was heard.
PAPER BOAT (2025) - Kai & Sachiko
We worked on the zine together in mid-2025, Minneapolis, when the United States government issued a series of restrictive policies and surveillance enforcements against international students.
Notwithstanding the transience of graduate school as "a phase in life," we understand that life is perennially precarious in an era of crisis. Kai (the writer) has lived abroad and across continents for around a decade. For her, queerness embodies the experience of negotiating her familial history, exploring intimacies while finding meanings for one's work, and making kins with the landscape, however fast-evolving it is, and with other earnest souls, even across time, through lived or imagined dys/utopias.
When figuring out the materiality of the zine, we recalled how we're always "on the move" and have to leave things behind. In a way we created the boat to be disposed of, especially when departure requires us to let go. In other words, the zine is not meant to be preserved, and in spite of our strong archival desire, we understand that no archive is permanent.
The illustration (by Sachiko) shows a woman delivering the boat - as a singular instance and as non-linear cycles. We wanted the readers to fold the paper and send it away in a river, as a farewell ritual in times of need.
Paper Boat has been collected by the Queering China Archive.
CHECKERED (YEAR?) - Kai & Sachiko