Independent Publishing Resource Center

The IPRC is available for lectures and workshops on topics relating to independent press. Any of our regular workshop offerings can be tailored to your group. In addition to giving tours of our Center, we engage in more in-depth outreach projects that serve the local community. We have presented to a variety of ages and grade levels, from elementary schools to colleges and universities, primarily in the Portland Metropolitan Area. Please contact info@iprc.org or call us at 503.827.0249 for rates and availability.

“The information I learned in the Media Action Project was so valuable to me.  It really helped me process my own thoughts on the subject rather than just agreeing with the media and everyone else.”

– Sandra Villegas, age 17, Gateway to College Student

“MAP prompted students to examine what they take for granted on billboards, in magazines, on television. It invited them to talk back to the voices that surround them. I watched my students peel back layers of assumptions about themselves and others while we examined media images and messages–they left class freer and more powerful. Thank you MAP and IPRC!”

-Haley Harkema, Roosevelt High School teacher

The Media Action Project (MAP) is a four-session outreach curriculum that teaches youth how to critically deconstruct print ads, television commercials and websites in order to examine their true messages about gender, violence, beauty, consumerism, etc, and to consider how these messages might affect their own sense of self and physical health.

After viewing a film on media literacy, students learn to create their own media in the form of a personal zine–an artful and fun genre with a long tradition of challenging the major media’s authority.  Along with enhancing self-esteem and encouraging positive health choices, one of our major goals is to help transform young people from passive consumers of media into more active and engaged creators of media, art, and culture.  MAP can be tailored to suit various classrooms and curricula; we currently offer MAP residencies in three separate focus areas:  masculinity and media violence; femininity and media constructs of beauty; and consumerism and conspicuous consumption.

For more information about how the IPRC can bring MAP to your school or youth venue please contact justin@iprc.org or call us at 503.827.0249.

One of our first MAP residencies in conjunction with Caldera

“Thank you so much for opening up my eyes to the spectacular world of zines! I never knew anything about then, and I can believe I have been missing the fun, the experience, and the pure creativity of the magical ZINE!”

–Jonathan B; Access Academy Student

Zines 101 is our basic outreach program.  During the course of just an hour or two, our expert instructors introduce zines and their history, and then work with participants to create and publish a collaborative zine right on the spot. The emphasis is on own empowering individuals to creatively express themselves and to get their work out in the world through self-publishing. Zines 101 can also be expanded to a workshop that assists students in publishing individual zines over multiple sessions.

Zines 101 has been presented in hundreds of classrooms at grade schools, junior highs, high schools, community colleges and universities throughout Portland and the surrounding areas.  We’ve also presented in a variety of alternative venues, including homeless shelters, treatment centers, other nonprofit arts organizations, writers groups, festivals and conventions.

Starting in 2006, our outreach volunteers have been working at the Volunteers of America Marie Smith Center, an Adult Day Center for seniors, including those with memory loss and disabilities. Each week, volunteers share zines and stories with participants, logging their tales and rich histories to publish in an Anthology Zine. Their second anthology was just published in late July 2009.

This project sought to encourage those who might feel unrespresented in the world of literature and books a chance to experience authorship first hand. We worked with street youth and students at an alternative high school on collaborative books on a subject of their choice. 2 staff from the IPRC conducted workshops weekly on the subjects of bookbinding, relief printing (linoleum block carving), and type setting (for letter press printing). In conjunction with Write Around Portland and with school staff, we also offered a creative writing session to explore the theme chosen. Youth were encouraged to maintain involvement over a 3 month period, and in completion, published a book written, illustrated, printed and bound by their own hands. Produced an edition of 25 books, distributed to individual participants, staff & administration, and the IPRC Library.

Recently presented at New Avenues for Youth and Lents Education Center (Janus Youth Programs). ¹

The IPRC began facilitation of a zine publishing project in the Portland Metropolitan Area where street youth and homeless teens experience publishing from start to finish on a regular basis in October 2001. The zines created can be a collaborative or individual forum in which young writers and artists will have a chance to express their views and creativity uncensored by schools or agencies, and where youth interested will have a chance to act as editors, writers, artists, designers and publishers. The IPRC organizes zine workshop days at a number of agencies to provide instruction and work time.

Continually being implemented at New Avenues for Youth, Outside In, and other downtown agencies. ²

In culmination of 2 years of research, interviews and information collecting, the group of teenage girls who comprise Parkrose Community Builders (PCB), and their leader from Familyworks, engaged in a documentary publishing project, with the assistance of the IPRC. The IPRC worked with the youth to define their publication, gain technical skills for the production and layout of their booklet, print covers for the edition, and distribute the end product to local archives and individuals. The resulting publication was an approximately 80 page book documenting the history of the Parkrose neighborhood of Portland, as told orally by elders of the community. The publication, The Wheel Keeps Turning, was released at the annual Rossi Farms Harvest Festival, and PCB participants talked about the process of researching & publishing this neighborhood history.

*Funded in part by grants from Braemer Memorial Trust, Mrs. Moe M. Tonkin Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation, Oregon Council for Humanities, and by a donation from Art Media.
**Funded in part by the Hoover Family Foundation and PGE-Enron Community 101.