Yuca issue 2
Delivered to Stack subscribers in
Feb 2017
A thoroughly 21st-century magazine, Yuca is made by a pair of editors based in Bogotá, a designer and printer in Barcelona, and a network of writers, photographers and artists who live all around the world.
Read on to find out more…
What is Yuca?
Yuca is an independent publication based in Colombia but aiming to reach a worldwide audience by discussing themes, ideas and concepts that are relevant to all human beings: Gastronomy and Roots in our first issue, and Architecture and Migrations in our second.
What makes it different to the rest?
The way we build each issue and approach the chosen theme. Every issue of Yuca is inspired by the idea of a blank page that invites to creation. On this canvas we bring together different forms of cultural and artistic expressions to explore a theme that we call our alibi. The alibi is direct enough so that we can use it as a start point, but loose enough that we can give our contributors, who come from different disciplines and have different nationalities, the freedom to create on their own terms and always from their personal point of view.
Who makes Yuca?
We’re a team of three, plus all our amazing contributors. Our editors Juliana Gómez and Lina Rincón are based in Bogotá, while our designer Carles Murillo and our press are in Barcelona. We work a lot through Skype, both amongst ourselves and with all our contributors worldwide.
Who reads it?
People who want to see the world from perspectives other than their own, who are open and curious enough to understand things from a different angle, and who aren’t afraid of finding out where posing questions might take them. All those who like to put themselves in the shoes of others, even when this means making an extra effort. Pragmatic romantics who enjoy reflection and beauty, and the pleasure of sneaking out of the routine to share a quiet moment with a printed book.
Why do you work in magazines?
All our lives we have loved print, the experience of paper, and reading something we took down from our shelves. And now we’re fascinated with the possibility of making our ideas tangible, giving them a particular colour, shape and smell in order to better convey them and share our experience with others.
Aside from the print magazine, what else are you involved in?
We’re currently starting a larger creative platform called Made By Alibi. We want to use this platform as a meeting place for several visual, digital and editorial projects we have all been working on for a while, and others we have in mind for the near future. Juliana leads No Water For Whales, a visual arts project she founded in 2010, and with which she makes film, photography and art direction for creative ventures around the globe. Lina works as a writer, translator, researcher and editor for initiatives in the public and private sectors and creates brand identity narratives. Carles works as an art director, and a graphic and editorial designer.
What would you change about Yuca if you could?
Making Yuca has been a constant learning process and we have adjusted several things along the way, changing the content, structure, and even paper stock. In each issue we make changes as a response to what we didn’t love from the previous one. Also, and this is part of why we’re starting Made by Alibi; we want to have a source of income that gives us more freedom when it comes to making decisions that require spending money and that allows us to pay our contributors better. We also wish we could work differently together. We’d love to be able to work from the same city and for us, the editors, to be able to be present during the printing and distribution process – or at least a bit closer.
Where do you see Yuca in five years?
We hope to still be there, creating our 12th issue for people who find they share something intimate with our magazine. We see it as a project that continues to grow, to question, and to draw upon the world in order to move people, even if it is in the slightest, tiniest way.
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