It’s been a while since we’ve posted anything on our website, in part due to the pandemic, but also because we’ve been juggling too many things in our studio! While the pandemic has truly brought about a lot of changes and impacted our magazine quite a bit, it has also made us realise the importance of being connected with our fellow travellers and readers—whether it is sharing stories and news through our website and social media channels, or meeting in-person via events. We want to be more transparent with our followers, and let everyone be part of our journey as we figure out the way forward. As such, we promise to put more effort into posting more updates about the magazine and our studio from now on, to keep everyone updated and connected about what’s going on!
Singapore: SGABF (April 14-16)
Due to the coronavirus, one of the biggest impacts on our studio and magazine for the past 3 years is that we were not able to travel out of China for any international events. While we’ve been enthusiastically participating in many local art book fairs and events during those 3 years, it hasn’t been quite the same without meeting people from the outside. We were not able to meet readers and friends in other places, and new potential readers were not able to discover our magazine either. We truly felt quite disconnected from the rest of the world. Thankfully, all this ended early this year, and we were able to travel back home to Singapore to take part in the Singapore Art Book Fair for the first time in 3 years.
Being back in Singapore to attend the Singapore Art Book Fair was truly a blessing. We were so happy to meet old and new indie publishing friends at the art book fair, and to reconnect with our readers in Singapore again after so long. Additionally, we also got to meet a lot of other friends and readers from the region at the art book fair, such as Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia. Nothing beats meeting and exchanging ideas in person on the ground, and that’s probably one of the most important things about going to art book fairs. A lot has changed in Singapore and we had to relearn the publishing landscape once again. We were so happy to also reconnect with our stockists Grassroots Bookroom and Kinokuniya (Takashimaya) on this trip back, after so many years. You can now find LOST at those two bookshops once again!
Bologna: Mag to Mag (May 6-7)
We had been invited by Frab’s Magazines to take part in their first ever magazine event in Bologna, Mag to Mag. This was extremely exciting for us, since we haven’t been to Europe for any magazine-related events for a while, and also because it was a brand new event that was happening for the first time; but most of all, because we’ve never been to Italy before. We were excited to discover what Italy had in store for us, especially after not being on that side of the world for so long.
In some ways, this trip brought us back to the original ethos of LOST: to travel and immerse oneself in someplace entirely foreign so that one can learn from it.
Mag to Mag took place in a historic building called the Sala Borsa. The architecture was absolutely stunning and to be part of an event in a space like this felt unreal. One of the things we realised after coming to Italy was that the language barrier was slightly challenging. During the event, we got to meet many new faces who were seeing LOST for the first time and we did our best to tell them about the magazine despite not speaking any Italian. But even with the language barrier, the Italian people were extremely warm and friendly, and we were lucky to meet many new happy readers!
Coincidentally, right next to my table at Mag to Mag was Pang of Meantime magazine from Singapore. We had met briefly in Singapore during SGABF, so it was great to meet each other again in Bologna. On the second day of Mag to Mag, both Pang and I gave a talk about our magazines in a lecture room next to the main exhibition hall. It was our first ever talk in Italy, and somehow our photo ended up on the website of Artribune, Italy’s leading art magazine.
After Mag to Mag ended, I stayed behind in Italy for a few days and paid a visit to the Frab’s Magazines shop in Forli. There I met up with Dario and Anna, the duo behind Frab’s Magazines and Mag to Mag, and was so glad I finally got to see the space after so long. It’s an interesting feeling to be able to reach a place physically after only being connected with it digitally online for a long period of time. It’s like reaching the place where the connection all started, and true enough, I found LOST on the shelves among the other magazines. Who could imagine that our magazine would be sitting on the shelf of a local bookshop in a town in Italy? It almost felt like the magazine had brought me there.
Stay tuned for part two of our studio updates!