July 12 – August 10, 2025
Closing reception: August 9, 2025, 6-7:30 PM
Speak Up! Protest Zines as Resistance comprises self-published zines that engage with the broad theme of protest across topics including gender, race and class, war and violence, displacement, the environment, censorship, and more. Contributed by artists and activists from around the world via an ongoing Open Call, the exhibition showcases a vivid cross-section of contemporary resistance in print. Created outside traditional publishing systems and often using simple, accessible tools, the zines speak to protest not just in content, but in form. Raw, urgent, and deeply personal, they remind us that self-publishing can be an act of defiance—and that print remains a powerful medium for making voices heard.
This exhibition and reading room is drawn from our current Open Call for photo-based protest and resistance zines, which in turn is inspired by our current exhibition Flashpoint! Protest Photography in Print, 1950–Present. The Open Call runs through August 2, which means that this is evolving in real time: we will continue to add zines to the Speak Up! Community Gallery space as they come in. If you have a photo-based protest zine you would like to submit, click HERE for the guidelines and submission form; the deadline is August 2.
NOTE: Instead of an opening party, we’ll be hosting a closing reception for Speak Up! on Saturday, August 9, 6-7:30 pm, which is also the first day of our Photobook + Zine Fair. Please join us to celebrate this rich outpouring of protest zines from all over the world.
Image credits:
Banner: Research and Destroy, courtesy of 10×10 Books.
Grid (from left to right): Kris Graves, Zachary Auburn, Maria Fernanda Hubeaut, Abdu Aljahma, Cali M. Banks, and Mel Watkin.
About the Community Gallery:
CPW’s Community Gallery is a new space dedicated to fostering connections between diverse local communities using photography. It will host a rotating schedule of short-run exhibitions featuring work by CPW members, local artist collectives, student groups, and projects by local nonprofit organizations. CPW is committed to being a welcoming hub for critical and creative explorations of photography from varied perspectives.
HOW TO SUBMIT A PROPOSAL TO THE COMMUNITY GALLERY:
Unless otherwise agreed upon, production, framing, installation, and de-installation are the sole responsibility of the exhibitor. Note: The gallery is not intended for exhibitions of individual artist submissions. Our goal is to provide exhibition space to local organizations and collectives that use photography to amplify their missions.
Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Write to communitygallery@cpw.org and please include the following:
- Names and contact information for all organizers and key workers.
- A short description of your project and its goals (300 words or less).
- At least five sample images, with captions and descriptions. These can be examples of previous projects or installations (please provide details).
- Preferred scheduling (month and year) for your exhibition. We will try our best to accommodate these requests whenever possible. If your project has a flexible schedule, please indicate that in your submission.
