Boundless Bound Workshops: Tunnels and Zines!
Hands-on workshops teach skills and foster creative exchange
School of Art Design and Art History
James Madison University
During the Boundless Bound Symposium and Art Book Fair, October 29–30, 2025, hands-on workshops fostered creative exchange and new artistic skills. In the Tunnel Books session, led by Jen Thomas, Book Arts Program Director of the University of Richmond, participants learned how to fold and attach paper to make a three-dimensional scene. To make a tunnel book, scenes are built within an accordion tunnel that can move the contents backwards and forwards. Wednesday’s creations included a Sandhill crane poised beside an expanse of water, a Frank Lloyd Wright-style house drawn meticulously, and a flying broomstick on a full moon night.
Tunnel books date from 15th Century Europe, when they were known as peepshow books. Contents can be exclusively paper or can include manufactured objects or bits of nature.
The Making Zines! Workshop introduced a full room to the joys of DIY. First, Professor Mary Thompson of JMU’s Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program shared her extensive zine collection, which included a zine crafted from a package of birth control pills, and another that advised on dumpster diving. Next, participants turns a single piece of paper into a multi-page zine. Finally, the group crafted pages to be assembled into a class zine on the concept of Boundless Bound… What is Boundless Bound? From the collages, Halloween grimoire, splatters, sewing, and drawing, it means connection and release. The pages will be bound but have moved out of their boundaries.