Big in Japan
Whenever my foreign friends ask me the best time to visit Tokyo, I always reply that it’s either October or November. The long, hot, and humid summer has finally ended, and the leaves on the trees are turning red and yellow. It’s starting to get chilly, but not too cold, and it’s the perfect time for a walk or a good book. There’s even a Japanese saying: “Autumn is for reading”. The Tokyo Art Book Fair is held every year around this time, and the 14th edition saw around 300 publishers, bookstores, and artists from Japan and overseas set up in the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, from 28 November to 1 December.
When I received an email from Stack the day before the fair asking if I would be interested in writing a report on it, I immediately jumped at the idea, because it would be the perfect excuse for me to talk with the makers of other magazines and ask them questions about their work. The fair included leading Japanese independent magazines, such as Shukyu and Neutral Colors, as well as others that Stack readers might be familiar with, like the bilingual Chinese-English magazine Te. But there are lots of other interesting magazines in Asia too, and in this report, I will introduce some of the publications I came across at the fair, and which I personally purchased. And I’ll start with my own magazine, Troublemakers, which Steven from Stack asked me to include in this list.
Manami Inoue and Yuto Miyamoto from Troublemakers
Troublemakers is a Tokyo-based bilingual English-Japanese magazine that tells stories of misfits. Having positively (mis)interpreted the word ‘troublemaker’, as someone who doesn’t turn a blind eye to social issues, we embrace the role of the troublemaker, and set out to meet up with misfits so we can share their personal life stories and help to amplify their voices. Through those stories, we hope to create opportunities for ourselves and our readers to think about the state of our society – because the personal is political.
In the first issue, published in the spring of 2024, we met an Osaka-based American trans woman who is my English tutor; a cultural advocate for the indigenous Ainu people of northern Japan; and a Switzerland-based intersectional feminist collective. The second issue is planned to be published in the Spring / Summer of 2025. In the course of making the magazine, we have come to think more about our roots, identity, and issues around us, so from the second issue onwards, we will focus more on telling stories in Japan and Asia.
Yagi Wang from Yyin.magazine
One of the joys of participating in a book fair is that you get to know your neighbours over the course of a few days through sharing excitement and helping each other. I was lucky that my neighbour on the left side was Yagi Wang, a soft-spoken Taiwanese graphic designer who had just launched Yyin.magazine, a bilingual English-Chinese title that focuses on gender fluidity.
Inspired by the Eastern philosophy of yin and yang, Yagi named the magazine Yyin., explaining that, “Yin symbolizes individual perspectives shaped by personal experiences.” The first issue is themed ‘Yin’, and it features 23 LGBTQ+ Taiwanese artists and creators, who contributed artworks based on their personal experiences and struggles. The magazine is full of unique graphics, and reading it feels like wandering through an exhibition on the pages. It offers a glimpse of the current state of gender expression by artists from Taiwan, the first Asian country that legalised same-sex marriage.
Of course, Yyin. was not the only queer-related publication at the fair. In the same area, there were also publishers, bookstores, and artists sharing queer-themed works, such as Loneliness Books (Japan), Queer Light (Japan), Dopamine Queer Zine Club (Korea), KQ234! (Korea), and Lin Jaihang (Taiwan). Compared to Europe, it is safe to say that Asia is more conservative about gender and sexuality – only Taiwan and Nepal have legalised same-sex marriage in Asia, and Thailand will be the third country to follow in January 2025. It seems that independent magazines and publications are helping to spread queer voices, which are not yet reaching far enough into the mainstream.
Park Jisoo and In Jeong Kim from Vostok
Vostok is a bimonthly photography magazine based in Seoul, Korea. The themes of each issue are highly diverse; along with the issues on the table, such as Transparent (No. 47), Black & White (No. 44), and Birdsong (No. 36) there are also unique themes in the back issues, such as Everyone’s Loneliness (No. 12), Dark Tourism (No. 17), and Memory, Memory, Memory (No. 28). As well as featuring photographic works on these themes, Vostok also invites poets and novelists to contribute to the same themes. Unfortunately, I can’t read Korean, but the editor-in-chief, Park Jisoo, says, “We want people to enjoy the chemistry between photography and text.”
Besides publishing magazines and photo books, independent publisher Vostok Press has also run the annual ‘Docking!’ portfolio competition for young Korean photographers since 2018. The only requirement for entry is that the applicant has not yet published a photo book, and the winner gets the opportunity to have their first photo book published by Vostok Press. “Having done crowdfunding in the early days, we, as an independent publishing house, can continue working thanks to the people,” says Jisoo. ”So, we have a social responsibility to support young artists. And the best thing we can do is to make books.”
Tan Aik and Christy Chua from The Slow Press
When you open the pages of The Slow Press, a Singapore-based food magazine, you’ll be surprised by the gap between the appearance and the content. It’s small and unassuming, and the cover is cute – the fifth issue features a picture of a fluffy cat on a table, and the sixth issue has a puffy sticker of a jelly on the cover. But inside the magazine is doing some serious storytelling. For example, the sixth issue, ‘Best Before’, collects food stories from the perspective of time and change, and it includes a report on the food hygiene issues faced by immigrant workers from Bangladesh and India in Singapore; there’s an article that explores the transition of wet markets in Singapore and their cultural significance; and an essay by editor-in-chief Aik about the recipe his now-deceased grandmother taught him and his memories of her.
“Our stories all have an element of simplicity. We don’t need to use difficult words – it’s just what everyone can understand,” says editorial director Christy Chua. “But for us, it’s always like, if you read something, I want you to feel something. And food makes you feel something.” Using food as an entry point that everyone can relate to, plus cute visual aesthetics, and simple wording, The Slow Press engages in social and personal storytelling, bringing unexpected encounters with stories from Singapore.
Jordan Marzuki from Jordan, jordan Édition, and his wife Petty
Susu’s upcoming launch cover. Photography by Vony Wong, writing and direction by Nikita Yusman, co-writer Saskia Arifia
There weren’t any magazines on their table, but I couldn’t resist introducing Jordan, jordan Édition, an independent publisher based in Jakarta, Indonesia. Founded by editorial designer Jordan Marzuki, the publisher tells Indonesian stories tucked away from society in the form of art books by collaborating with Indonesian artists. For example, The Banda Journal highlights the legacy of centuries-long colonisation and exploitation in the remote Indonesian Banda Islands. Through beautiful photography and the testimonies of local people, it tells the tragic history of the spice race and the current situation of Banda, which was once the world’s only source of nutmeg.
And their upcoming project is going to be a magazine! It will be a bilingual Indonesian-English publication titled Susu, which is the Indonesian word for ‘milk’, and a play on the name of the hated dictator Suharto, who served as president from 1968 to 1998. It will be an intersectional feminist magazine created by female writers and photographers to celebrate diverse Indonesian female identities. “This kind of subject is very taboo in Indonesia because it’s a very conservative country,” says Jordan. “So, this magazine is my attempt to bring this marginalised group to the public.”
Jordan says their books might seem innocent at first glance, but are very political, constituting a form of “silent protest”. Jordan, jordan Édition beautifully shows that publishing, and telling underrepresented stories, can be a political message to society.
