Meneka Thiru has always had a knack for creating and sharing with others. As a child, she would trace her favorite characters and scenes from comic books and collage them together on a poster to display in her bedroom. In third grade, she made an entire magazine that she could show to her classmates.
“I just enjoyed making stuff and sharing it with people,” she said.
Thiru creates under the name, My Name is Pakka. Her block print designs feature reminiscences from her childhood balanced, with “the liberatory work that we need to do” — from Haribo Goldbears and Nerf Guns to Grubby the opposum shouting, “ACAB!” and a watermelon vine with the words “FREE PALESTINE.”
“When we don’t have to be fearful of violence, we can just live and embrace our inner child. I think because of that, I feel really called to create works that are nice and fun,” Thiru said.
Growing up, zine culture was not available to Thiru, but her former job at the Anchorage Public Library allowed her to host zine workshops and foster an environment to create for others.
“Art can be prohibitively expensive for people. I think the culture of making zines on a Xerox machine and it just costs 20 cents per copy, that makes it so easy,” Thiru said. “I think also because it is easy, it removes a lot of the pressure to make something super perfect and aesthetic.”
Art has always been “very personal” to Thiru. She always was creating something for herself, or for a friend or family member as a gift — but was never focused on appealing to a larger audience.
Around the pandemic, Thiru says she spent more time in creating; watercolor painting, embroidery, and block printing. She was living with her parents at the time and was introduced to an Indigenous-owned watercolor company, Beam Paints, and dove in head-first.
“It was this time where people were so wholesomely getting into hobbies,” Thiru said. “People were playing Wordle, and we were doing just a lot of really wonderful things for ourselves that I think in a capitalist system we don’t always have time to do that. So that was really a privilege to be able to experience that time, and I know that not everyone got that opportunity.”
Thiru says that early plans are in the works to have a zine fair in December.
Sam Davenport is a writer residing in Anchorage. She's a leo and a plant-person, and loves spending quality time with her dog, Aspen. She is a Real Housewives fan and has been called a Bravo historian.
