STAT09

Editorial, design & photography work for STAT magazine issue 09. August 2023.

I decided to go all out on a swanky limited edition version. I designed the cover using a repeat-photocopying process, then printed it onto translucent red paper. It’s packed out with some fancy recycled grey paper and bound with a black elastic band.

This issue features two reviews I wrote (one of a film screening, the other a day of workshops). All other content was edited by me and George and assembled on the pages by me.

Copies came with an A6 postcard of a photograph I took in Edinburgh and a poem I wrote printed onto transparent film.

***

Much of the art I make for myself revolves around found imagery and its manipulation through the addition of text. I quite enjoy the application of a meaningless slogan, the removal of context from whatever image is beneath the pretty typefaces.

I’ve often tried to do the same in an editorial sense. To portray the North as something beyond its mining history, brass bands, and Eccles cakes. Beyond its context. But ultimately this is quite dogmatic of me. For better or worse, the North is what it is today due to its history and this is worthy of exploration. Not necessarily in terms of nostalgia – because often those times were utterly miserable – but in the interests of understanding, reflection, and remembrance. Because only with those things can we build something better.

Pete Mercer, Issue 09 Editorial 

August 2023