What is the Mazina Brand?

Mazina® is a family of products that includes Hinged PhotoPages with Flexbind® technology for press-printed books.

What is FlexBind^® technology?

The FlexBind® process integrates a unique hinge into quality, archival digital papers producing a digital sheet product that is ready to print.

Mazina® Hinged PhotoPages combine the patent pending FlexBind® hinge with various digital stocks to produce a range of sheet sizes and formats for press-printed products. After being imaged the unique hinge allows finished bound volumes to lay flat to display full panoramic spreads. Mazina® FlexBind® papers, with superior toner adhesion and the strength and durability to hold up to demanding book applications, give the digital printer a “head start” on producing a superior product.

What’s the significance of the Mazina® name?

Mazina, the name we have chosen for this fine line of innovative print media and book making products, is respectfully borrowed from the language of the Anishinabe. Also referred to as Ojibwe and Chippewa, Anishinabe is the name The People call themselves. It means, Original People of the Woodland. Mazina is their word meaning book.

 The Anishinabeg (plural) revere nature, The Creator, ancestors, tradition, family and story telling. They have lived and continue to live in the sacred lands surrounding the Great Lakes of North America during centuries upon centuries of continuous occupancy.

Mazina products are dedicated to recording, preserving and sharing works of lasting art and memories now, and for future generations. Mazina media combine the creativity of the human spirit with state of the art digital imaging, publishing and paper making technologies to produce enduring books of great beauty, importance and meaning.  

A Photographer’s statement

 My camera work on Minnesota’s White Earth Reservation continues a twenty-year striving to experience and reveal the relentless survival spirit of the Anishinabe people. I have built relationships over the years with the people of White Earth and they graciously have invited me into their homes and allowed me to wander their land in my attempt to express through photography, their fierce sense of community, their spirit and dignity.

 Though weighted down with an immense historical grief, the people of White Earth are steeped in strong values, traditions, and lore.  They are keenly focused on surviving, recovering, and thriving as a community.  Through photographing and print giving, I have been able to assist in a small way in that recovery.  I have provided images of loved ones long gone and buildings no longer standing, as well as harvest related images of hunting, berry gathering, wild rice gathering, and traditional dances—images that make their community swell with pride.

                                                                                                                     John Ratzloff

 John Ratzloff is a Minneapolis photographer. His work has been featured in countless publications, many exhibitions and The Smithsonian’s National Museum of  The American Indian.