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In Edition 9, we double down on our commitment to creatives, culture, and community. We’re most interested in the intersections that bind these three pillars together, how creativity begets community, how community creates culture, and how culture becomes fertile ground for further creative output, whether it be Genevieve Gaignard’s series that unsettle gender and race tropes with the lethal playfulness of a cat batting around a mouse, or College Track Crenshaw’s unstintingly unsentimental commitment to vitalizing students before, through, and after college. Edition 9 relishes the endlessly diverse, un-pin-down-able flourishings of aesthetic vitality, from the edgy nostalgia of Jason Thomes’s Yeah, I Work Out movement to Sanford Biggers’s Buddhist-level cool. Join us to celebrate community: the people that make it and the art that consolidates the fact of being here, together.
Everything we touch was designed by someone.
The places we occupy, the products we use, and even the lives painstakingly designed for public consumption on platforms designed to turn the human eye toward screens. Design shows us what will come next: the museum that will be built, the clothing style that will sell. It holds the future in place with a few strokes of the pen, the scissor, the hoe, the brush. In this issue of the OG, “The Art of Design,” we meet the artists and visionaries who are designing the culture of the future. Rejecting the cult of conformity that drums out tidy designs for others to replicate, these groundbreakers are creating work and community that inspires the next generation to design themselves, authentically.
In a world marred by the twin obscenities of injustice and inequity, how does creative work promote visions of dignity for all? In The OG’s Edition 7, we turn to artists and visionaries who intersect activism and creative work in new and provocative ways. Their work asks us to rethink the relationship between the creative world—long seen as a private, elite sphere—and the public. In what ways do creatives bridge this gap? Or do they work as though there is no gap to bridge—that artistic production and activism can be one and the same? The legendary Black poet June Jordan famously wrote that “poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” Edition 7 celebrates that lineage in the visionaries who are telling the endlessly difficult truth in acts of brave, artistic activism.
In a world marred by the twin obscenities of injustice and inequity, how does creative work promote visions of dignity for all? In The OG’s Edition 7, we turn to artists and visionaries who intersect activism and creative work in new and provocative ways. Their work asks us to rethink the relationship between the creative world—long seen as a private, elite sphere—and the public. In what ways do creatives bridge this gap? Or do they work as though there is no gap to bridge—that artistic production and activism can be one and the same? The legendary Black poet June Jordan famously wrote that “poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” Edition 7 celebrates that lineage in the visionaries who are telling the endlessly difficult truth in acts of brave, artistic activism.
The product we consume at a gallery or a restaurant, a show or a shop, is the end point of its creator’s process and practice. How did it get made? This is the deceptively simple question we pose in Issue 6 of The OG. Our theme, “Process and Practice,” yields responses as divergent and innovative as the visionaries we feature. We are as interested in the micro processes of craft as we are in the macro theories of practice. Peeling back the layers of how and why a visionary does what they do helps us to understand what their vision means. In an era that remains hysterically devoted to façade, we delve deep to the foundations and blueprints. There, in the muddy trenches of craftsmanship, we celebrate the processes and practices that bring visions to life.
Legacies exist as property, money or ideas bequeathed from one individual to another, spanning generations and time. They are lasting impressions or a gesture toward “forever,” implying history, longevity and permanence. And yet the events, and actions that make them, are rare examples of ingenuity and innovation — anomalies that break patterns and contradict the notion of continuity, which ironically is integral to the concept of “legacy.” In a time when global connectivity via the internet creates a wellspring of ideas and information, we want to bring forth those with lasting impressions. The OG’s fifth issue highlights the legacies of those who have upheld heritage and traditions while also redefining spaces and catalyzing change.
Edition 4 of the OG magazine centers around ‘Pioneers’ — individuals who are forging their own paths and shifting paradigms within the cultural spaces they inhabit. One definition of the term conjures associations with colonialism, but on the contrary, this issue considers what it means to be a true pioneer; one who begins, introduces, instigates,develops, and evolves. From musicians and visual artists, to fashion labels and technology, we connected with innovators from the digital, social and ecological vanguard who are opening doors to new frontiers. On the occasion of our first debut outside of New York City, we are pleased to share the Pioneers edition of the OG — reconsidering the way we view, experience and occupy this world.
Issue 3 of the OG zine started to come together at the height of the COVID-19 lockdown in Summer of 2020. Throughout August and September, we collected interviews to survey the creative output generated by members of the community. Makers, thinkers and organizers throughout the art, design and music industry demonstrated their acumen and resourcefulness as they built new and inspiring modes of support, fostering esprit de corps during truly exceptional times. A year later, as we continue to face new and unprecedented challenges, these stories of ingenuity and resilience are as relevant as ever, and we are pleased to share them in this special interviews edition of the OG.