Anecdotes Issue 2!

Theme: Alternative Spaces

What we are about?

Creative collaboration - True collaboration, everyone takes part in the final product, not lead by us and what we want to see in it but what people have a passion to make

• Focused on Bristol music, arts and culture appreciating, investigating and archiving it
• Humanising everyone to each other through anecdotes and genuineness
• We want to commission a lot of art and promote everyone involved to give them more opportunities

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• Suggest anything, we are here to accommodate your vision, passions and creativity

Collective

We are partnered with Merchant and we are trying to create a wider community of people working together to create beautiful art, events and opportunities.

The first issue of our magazine had around 30 contributors and focused generally on nightlife in Bristol and talking about the experiences we all have but don’t talk about. Trying to feel familiar to people and invite them into the projects future. If you didn’t get a copy, we have some here if you’d wanna come by one. They’re £5.

We are putting on an exhibition at next Merchant event along with Art Soc and Fashion Soc and local artists and clothing brands. Which is 19th of March at Trinity Centre from 8pm-12pm.

Alternative Spaces

Definition: Spaces operating outside mainstream commercial club and bar spaces or infrastructure. Created to celebrate underrepresented people, niche creative expressions, and lifestyles that don't fit the mainstream mold.

The "Anecdotes" Angle: Exploring how we create these spaces personally with friends, not just at large events.

The Bristol Trope: Celebrating the city's unique DIY spirit where everyone is an active participant (DJ, promoter, writer) rather than just a consumer.

Examples

• Festivals and free parties, they create their own space which can often be very different from what club culture is
• Socially alternative spaces, gay/queer clubs, communal venues (PRST), An Experience et cetera
• Alternative artforms, niche genres coming from underrepresented communities, fusion genres, open decs nights, arts workshops
• Third Spaces, we find 3rd spaces in our own life say the gym, University Societies, hobbies, arts as well as different groups of people
• Alternative spaces are often created by underrepresented groups and then appropriated into pseudo-mainstream culture. Many amazing and cool environments we get to experience were created by specific communities for specific reasons.
• Different spaces for cultural practices like religious buildings can become a very unique spaces
• Personal spaces, spaces we create with our friends which only have meaning to individual social groups. Like all your friends having this bench where you meet

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Types of Articles

Event Reviews:

Anecdotal evidence for the practical archive that is the magazine. Focus on feelings, raw experience, spaces and intensities. Can be oriented as the writer sees fit, be that visual, audiological, political. Will be adapted to fit the theme of the issue.

Philosophy:

A piece exploring the cultural logic or structure of a practice/ event/ habit. Breaking down boundaries, making people think. Anything that is more speculative fits in here, but it should always make recourse to experience and anecdotes.

Poems:

You all know what a poem is.

In Depth Histories/Explanations:

Relevant-to-issue in-depth history (e.g. of a given alternative space/ place/ object/ cultural practice). Focus on the experiences of people and empirical detail rather than logical structure. Proper archival research. A chance to get your teeth into a Bristol based topic which has always fascinated you.

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Frivolous ridiculous comic relief:

Anything ridiculous. Satire is powerful. Absurdity is political. This section will act as the glue, sticking together the more wordy opinion based pieces as light comic relief.

Purely anecdotal collections:

A vignette of a weird or interesting cultural artefact. For example, we had a short piece based on the graffiti commonly found in bathrooms. Doesn’t need to have much substance beyond a thought you had about it.

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Creative Direction Notes

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3 Parts

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1 - Liminal Spaces - Focusing on potentially liminal spaces often depict transitional spaces and states, like doorways, corridors, stairwells, empty rooms. Symbolizing psychological or emotional change. Also stuff like backrooms and behind the scenes photography could be very cool.

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2 - Juxtaposition - Contrasting elements together to create tension, meaning, or new interpretation. Slightly more absurdist stuff which highlights unique spaces as an active part of social life.

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3 - Organic social Alternative Spaces - We want to highlight the people who make up these spaces by using lots of festival & free party photography. As well as generally collecting photos from everyone of them and their friends simply enjoying life somewhere which happens to be important to them.

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The team!

Honestly come to any of us with any questions, article, art or design ideas you have, we are all happy to help. But here are the general roles everyone is taking up, so who confirming stuff will go through

Meet the team!

Felix - Creator

Bit of everything

Fraser - Events Manager

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Organises launch party and does a bit of everything

Noah - Chief Editor

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He will work with you on your article. For all queries about writing go to him. If he’s busy Lily or Felix can help :)

Virginia - Artist Liaison

She will work with you on the art you want to do. Show you the articles we have and try and work out how you’d like to contribute. Then confirm that with you

Stang- Artist Liaison

Aiding Virginia in this with a specific focus on those focusing from ArtSoc and not in University.

Ruben - Design Director

He is designing the magazine. So for spreads or the precise way your contribution will appear on page he is your guy.

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Lily - Collaboration Coordinator

She will be organising more meetings like this and art workshops. As well as helping a lot with the launch. If you want to brainstorm ideas for the magazine but you feel very hazy on precisely what it is, or if it would fit. Chat to her she’s great.

Thinking of writing an article?

You can write anything you want! Even if it doesn’t fit the brief, if you can tell us why it relates to alternative spaces, I see no reason it shouldn’t be included.

Step 1 - Submit a google form which we have in our bio. OR if your unsure come talk to us, we’ll help you work out what you’d want to write

Step 2 - After we confirm it with you. Submit a short brief for what your article will be on and a visualisation, brief notes on how you want it to look. All articles need to be confirmed by the 24th of March!

Step 3 - Write it! And attend meetings where you get to meet people who’d want to do art to see who’d want to illustrate your article

Step 4 - Submit the final Article by the 14th of April!

Thinking of doing art for the next issue

You can either do stand alone pieces or illustrate an article

Step 1 - You will receive all the article briefs and Virginia & Stang will work with you to see which article you’d want to do art for.

Step 2 - Confirm with Virginia &/or Stang what art you’re doing by the 14th of April!

Step 3 - Completed art sent to us by 21st of April!

Note - Please make sure you submit your art in the format you will be asked to so we can easily digitise it. Ideally the piece itself if not a scan most likely.

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Workshops and Socials!

We are planning on running more meetings like this where we can update everyone on the progress of the magazine, what’s happening and asking for you guys to advise us on what you want to see from Anecdotes.

Importantly these will also be used as an opportunity for us to work with you on whatever you’re doing for the next issue!

We will also have art workshops which we will confirm on our instagrams, so we can all get together and do the art for the next issue together!

Timeline

24th of March - All articles commissioned with briefs and visualisations in

14th of April - All the articles completed and all the art commissioned

21st of April - All the art completed. Have everything we need to, in order to design the magazine

1st of May - Have a first draft which we can all gather and see and give notes and then produce the final draft

7th of May - Final Draft.

14th of May - Printed

20th-22nd of May - LAUNCH!!!