Tour the tables at Hong Kong’s Booked

Booked returned to Tai Kwun Contemporary from 30 August to 1 September, marking the sixth year of the Hong Kong Art Book Fair. It was a sell-out success, with publishers from Hong Kong, Macau, and Mainland China, as well as Japan, Korea, Indonesia, the UK, US, and beyond.

One of those publishers was Nelson Ng, who attended with Lost, his own beautifully produced English / Chinese travel magazine. Nelson is responsible for introducing me to some of my favourite Asian publications, so when he offered to send a report from Booked, of course I jumped at the opportunity. Take a look at some of his favourite magazines below to get a sense of what was on show, and if you’d like to write a similar piece for the Stack blog, let me know! I love sharing select bits from magazine fairs around the world, and with your help we can give space to more of the best and most distinctive independent publishing.

Published by Hong Kong-based designer 4res, Music Zine is a CD-sized booklet that has a different theme each issue. The first was ‘Universe’, while the second issue is a selection of indie music from Southeast Asia, and the third focuses on 90s Britpop, coinciding with the 30-year anniversary of Oasis’s debut album Definitely Maybe. Inside, a playlist of 10 songs is based around the issue’s theme, and the artwork has a sort of cut-and-paste aesthetic, reminiscent of fanzines from the 80s.
shop.zinecoop.org/music-zine

A seasonal map-zine from Peng Chau, one of Hong Kong’s outlying islands, Islanders explores the islands, their people and lifestyles, to develop original perspectives on sustainable living. It’s full of fascinating details, for example the local T-shirt that island residents wear regularly, but which cannot be bought and can only be acquired if you’re recognised as a neighbour or contributed your sweat during a local festival. The clean layout and light-hearted illustrations give the zine a friendly and fun personality, and the whole thing folds out into a handy map.
islanders.bigcartel.com

Published in Japan, Neotokyozine is made by G/P+abp, a new print-on-demand platform for photobooks that works in collaboration with Fujifilm Business Innovation. The Neotokyozine project is an attempt to make the new system available to photographers and artists, and so far they have published more than 60 high quality zines, including Tokyo Broken Mirrors, which are all available on G/P+abp’s online store. The colours are super exciting, digitally printed and richly defined. I like how most of the zines are made in the same format – even the covers are laid out in the same font and in a similar fashion, creating a simple consistency that emphasises the different photography or artwork. Each issue is relatively brief, so it reads like a short visual poem, with some text at the end to explain a little more behind the artists’ intent.
gpabp.official.ec

Based in New York and Beijing, Te explores the intersection of the arts and humanities, focusing on the different ways that cultures encounter one another, transforming each other within the global cultural flow. The third issue’s theme, ‘Mirroring’, represents a continuous exploration of the self, confronting various experiences of ‘plight’: the plight of the persecuted; of artists; of the forgotten; and of those living with colonial legacies. How might we, as individuals, transmute plights in order to learn to live in this world?

I’ve always loved Te magazine for its content and how it goes deep into its chosen topic. The magazine always feels serious, and with the third issue, the use of grey and darker colours creates a sombre reading experience – each interview or essay is dense with ideas, giving the reader lots to think about and consider.
te-editions.com

Yep Yep is an experimental fashion and art magazine based in Hong Kong, and featuring original works by emerging local creatives. This one is just so cool. Everything about it. There’s so much to love here, from the bizarre imagery to the playful graphic design; for example text is printed backwards on one page, opposite a mirrored page, so the reader needs to read the reflection of the inverted text.
yepyepmag.com