Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Theo N’Daou. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Theo thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I learned how to make zines first in elementary school, and quickly forgot about their existence entirely. It was only in highschool that I went to Quimby’s, one of the only zine stores in Chicago, that I realized the potential of these little self published booklets. Once I withdrew from school for medical reasons and the pandemic hit not long after, I was drawn once again to the idea of sharing my art and words with people without the usual roadblocks of finding a publisher for my writing. I made my first zine in 2021, just a cover and a poem, and I was so proud to hold my work in my hands I never looked back. I’ve been writing and creating art for my zines ever since.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Materia Mundus was born out of a need to see content for people like me in the world. For the delicate flowers (a nickname my mother gave me as a child) who live in the intersection of sensitivity, oppression, and nonnormative bodies/minds. I am a disabled, Black Indigenous, queer creative who didn’t see enough non triggering content when as I growing up. There was violence and sexual assault in everything, books, movies, TV, music, art. I wanted to create work that was in service to a softer world that made space for people like me. I got into zines in highschool, when I visted Quimby’s (the only zine shop in Chicago) with a group of friends. I forgot about it for years until COVID hit, and I was looking for a versatile medium through which to share my many interests and passions. Zines were a revalation the more I looked into them, the more I learned about their history with the Harlem Renaissance with little magazines like “Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists”, the more I found an artistic lineage that spoke to me. I have created work about everything from trauma informed kink to motivation and healing after dysregulation. What sets my work apart from others is my perspective. I come from a rich cultural heritage, I have been making art since I was in elementary school in so many different mediums, I’m a worldbuilder, I’m fat, and was raised as a black woman. I create zines with my art on the cover and my writing within, I create digital illustrations which I turn into stickers and prints. And I create stamps with which to adorn my zines. Ever since starting this business I have been devoted to creating work that I truly enjoy making because I believe it can be felt if in the end result of my work. Which is why the tagline for my business is “the matter of my world.” I’m sharing my world in the hopes that it will make others feel hopeful and less lonely in theirs.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect is learning how to see everything as an artistic process, and therefore something I have a say in. How my life is structured doesn’t have to be something that’s always beyond my control, I do have the ability to alter and change it to some degree.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson I had to unlearn is my perspective matters. There weren’t a lot of black women or nonbinary people who were great authors of fantasy like I dreamed of being when I was growing up, and there weren’t a lot of black women entrepreneurs once I became older either. So in creating for my business I am healing the belief that my perspective doesn’t matter.

Contact Info:

• Website: etsy.com/shop/MateriaMunds
• Instagram: @materiamundus
• Youtube: @materiamundus (Delicate Flower Studios)

Image Credits
Beatrice (Theo) N’Daou