The Plant, #13
Is it possible to sum up an issue of a magazine in five pictures? We introduce a new strand that tests that proposition today, with a look at the brand new thirteenth issue of The Plant.
Creative director Carol Montpart gave us an impressive sneak peek of the issue at ModMag last month and the printed thing more than lives up to that promise. Photography has come to the fore, taking up the vast majority of the issue’s 180 pages, as the five pictures here show.
ONE: As teased on the pair of cover options, there’s a beautiful set of images by the late Linda McCartney of her family and friends from the late sixties to early eighties. Billed as ‘Flowers by Linda MaCartney’, this image is typical, Linda and Paul’s son James by some water in 1981. It’s a beautiful set, with a moving intro from Paul.
TWO: A beautiful shoot celebrating birdwatching. Sandra Berrebi dresses people as birds with metal beaks by Amandaine Ducrot, and Estelle Hanania shoots them on the beaches on northern France. Quite stunning.
THREE: Tex Bishop shoots the annual festival of Os Maios in northern Spain, a Celtic tradition marking the renewal and fertility of Spring. We’re used to seeing similar English festivals; this one is a little different, as it features children as symbols of renewal, disappearing to create their own plant costumes and leave themselves unrecognisable.
FOUR: Despite brief written elements earlier in the issue and a couple of combined text-image features, it isn’t until page 136 that we reach the one pure-play written feature, a profile of artist Ana Mendieta and her works with her naked body in forests. It links nicely with the Os Maios story.
FIVE: At the back of the issue we find the regular ‘Loose Leaves’ run of briefer written pieces, including this reflection on mazes, written by Jacob Charles Wilson and illustrated hy Christina Zimpel.
It’s another brilliant issue. These five pictures give only a brief flavour of the creativity of the commissioning across image and text, all of which fits well in the still-new larger format of the magazine.
Editor-in-chief: Cristina Merino
Creative directors: Isobel Merino and Carol Montpart