Out now: OOMK (One of My Kind)
I’m just been putting the finishing touches to a presentation I’m doing later today. One of the points I’ll be making is that magazines should surprise, and this recent launch is the perfect example of how a magazine can be a surprise.
OOMK (One of My Kind) is a small-format publication teetering at the edge of the space between zine and magazine. Produced in London by Rose, Sabba and Sofia, it’s their attempt to move on from earlier zine projects and make a more finished magazine. They raised the cost of printing online – read their appeal site here – and spoke about their new magazine at Printout last month.
At first look it shares a lot with any number of showcase magazines – selected art and photography presented page by page with a brief description and URL – but becomes more interesting as you dig deeper (though it’s worth adding there is some lovely work showcased, like the piece above by Sabba, inspired by an Italo Calvino short story).
The trio have managed to intelligently combine several different strands; they use the issue’s theme (‘Fabric’) to investigate feminism and art through an essay on the traditional role of the seamstress (above), while later in the issue another writer offers lighter thoughts on keeping a personal visual journal.
This photo report (above) by Hudda Khaireh and Nazmin Khanom records daily life as lived by Kurds in Syria just before the current internal conflict kicked off. It’s presented with little fuss but is all the more powerful for that. The reader is left wondering how these family’s lives would look now. Preceding that, a simple drawn tribute to science fiction author Ray Bradbury by Simone Rodney-Foli (below) is slipped in.
It’s this mix that makes it so engaging and convincing. There is strong conviction to the political, just as there are references to the editors’ Muslim background, but the magazine isn’t polemical. The cover art – three Victorian English women with added Hijabs – sets the tone, as does the brief tribute (below) to Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Youafzai. OOMK is a reflection of its editors lives – three young British Muslim women setting out on creative careers. More please.
