Zine-Making at The Punk Rock Museum: Creating a Bridge Between Museum Display and Personal Meaning-Making with Adult Visitors

Museums increasingly seek to support engagement that moves beyond observation toward personal meaning-making, reflection, and participation. This study examines how zine-making (pronounced ‘zeen,’ DIY multimodal artifacts) functions as a visitor-led interpretive practice that supports adult visitors in engaging with museum content in personally meaningful ways. Conducted at The Punk Rock Museum in Las Vegas, where the medium’s roots in punk culture align with the museum’s subject matter, the study explores how visitors process, reinterpret, and carry forward their experiences through creative making. Findings show that zine-making supports three interrelated processes: situated reflection, intentional re-authoring, and memorability, through which visitors connect exhibits to their identities, reshape institutional narratives, and retain key aspects of their experience. Using a mixed-methods approach, data include surveys, interviews, zines, and observations. These findings demonstrate how participatory, multimodal approaches support transformative museum learning and position visitors as coauthors of meaning.