New Recipes For Tired People

In this essay, written in English and French, Vilnius-based artist Anastasia Sosunova unfolds her research on the history of printing, from Daniel Hopfer’s etchings to underground printers from the Soviet era, and connected the printing “matrix” to the mother figure, referencing Ocean Vuong and Guadalupe Nettel.

Ocean Vuong writes, “I’m not a monster. I’m a mother”; Jeanette Winterson: “She was a monster but she was my monster.” And thus, the monster I refer to is the one that gives birth to the prints that shape the tongues, fears, and beliefs of vast groups of people. Books of marvels and beasts, now considered emblems of a dark age of ignorance and superstition, proliferated in the 15th and 16th centuries thanks to emergent printing technologies and the influential naturalists they helped create. In the illustrations of scientific explorations by Fortunio Liceti, Athanasius Kircher, or Ulisse Aldrovandi, the lines between fact and fiction were irrelevant as they were impossible to discern.

This chapbook is published as part of the project “Mi-Monstre Mi-Livre,” organised by After 8 Books, Ariel Ink, Publication Studio Paris and Six Chairs Books, during a residency at Aperto, Paris, in the framework of the Lithuanian Season in France.

Everyone is layered is a scrapbook zine and a collection of poems made of the do’s and don’ts sections of a fashion magazine.

Layering is a great way to play with cowgirls-gone-wild.

They're perky, edgy pretty with a tank peeking out under a sense of humour

their thongs hanging out

after a few hours something

just feel silly floaty, jus-past-your-waist

shapes are miserable,

shapeless ones hourglassy.

WHERE’S HER BUTT?

After the ‘best-of’ character of issue 001 and the mono-themed ‘food fad issue’ 002, number three is again somewhat more loosely conceived — less of a theme issue than a concept zine that aims to tap into certain elements of the zeitgeist. It consists of ten brand-new pieces in the form of essays, compilations of shorts, a still life series and even fiction — all circling around the anxieties of being alive in the world today and the way they reflect in what and how we eat. With pieces on chef culture, food diplomacy, paranoia about food safety, microwaves, internet urban legends and food crimes, the magazine’s graphic design takes cues from tabloid newspapers to fit the salaciousness and scandal-ridden character of its topics. Issue 003 is famous for my dinner parties’ signature blend of cultural criticism and bold, vibrant imagery at its best.

An artist's book presenting a photographic study of onions.

On Onions is a photographic study of onions by artist Elad Lassry (born 1977). Characteristically highlighting the spectrum of hues and shapes for the vegetable, Lassry's selected taxonomy includes sections on red, yellow and white onions, each of which possesses its own distinct taste and benefits. On Onions is Lassry's first artist's book, and the work will exist only in book form; it is at once wry, refreshing and disorienting in its biology workbook style, which makes fruitful use of "the confusion that results when there is something just slightly wrong in a photograph" (as the artist has described his practice in general).

Composed by the artist and arranged by Stuart Bailey, the book includes an essay written by Angie Keefer about the effects of sliced onions on human tear ducts.

This publication features a project by Leone Contini looking into the canned food available during the war of Caporetto in 1917 and especially its iconography. It brings together an essay by the artist along with reproductions of a selection of his drawings.

Leone Contini (born 1976 in Florence) studied philosophy and cultural anthropology at the University of Siena. His research unrolls at the intersection of anthropology, aesthetics and politics and his mediums include lecture-performances, collective interventions in public spaces, textual and visual narratives, drawings. His research is focused on intercultural frictions, conflict and power relations, displacement, migrations and diasporas, aiming to investigate, to question and to re-shape identity patterns and power relations.

Chilli is one of the most popular food ingredients in contemporary China, and symbolic of modernisation. More Than Chilli goes beyond its trendy façade to explore Chongqing, known for its tradition of spicy food. From the perspective as a local, Rossy Liu reflects on her own personal memories associated with chilli. A combination of fragmented scenes, objects, dialogues, movements and sounds are drawn on to unravel the locality of culinary identity. While chilli has become a ubiquitous flavour in today's global society, the book emphasises the hidden intimacy that still exists between Chongqing locals and their unfiltered connection to chilli.