As part of the Dazed Live festival, which was held in London this Saturday, one of its major partner, the Absolut Vodka brand, presented an exhibit called ‘A Celebration of the City through Self-Publishing’ exploring the past, present and future of the capital and its culture of independent zine publishing. For the retrospective installation, Absolut London collaborated with jotta.com, an online community for artists and creatives.
Image: www.dazeddigital.com
This project continued a series of brand’s projects dedicated to the urban theme (some of them are featured in Popsop’s ‘Brands and the City. Part 2’ review) and invited public to contribute in two ways: to bring their personal publications of this kind as well as rare issues of old fanzines from their collections and partake in developing a unique piece for the installation. For four days before the exhibit, jotta.com encouraged users of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr to answer a number of key questions about London, and then used all of these crowd-sourced inspirations to create a “‘mind map’, embodying the core and ethos of zine culture—as the expression of individual opinion.”
Image: www.dazeddigital.com
The exhibition also included various examples of self-publishing in London, showcasing the most vibrant works of this form of informative visual art, celebrating its yesterday, today and delving into its tomorrow in a way. The showpieces were ranging from the 1960s underground magazine OZ, the punk fanzines of the 1970s (Jon Savage’s collage/montage fanzine ‘The Secret Public’ and Paul Morley’s ‘Girl Trouble’), to a plethora of modern publications, both British and international, and a selection of very early issues of the indie magazine Dazed & Confused, which was started as a zine.
Image: www.dazeddigital.com
As it was mentioned above, the exhibit not only paid tribute to the culture of zine publishing, but also gave a sneak peek into its future, which was discussed in a radio show hosted by Ned Beaumen and featuring guests including Alex Zamora (Fever Zine), Veronica So and Simon Whybray (LAN), and Liam Young (Tomorrows Thoughts Today). The Absolut London’s exhibit was created exclusively for the one-day festival and is not going to be re-opened—still, building on the display’s success, Absolut might change its mind.
Image: www.dazeddigital.com