play/GROUND #2
395 x 520 mm, 44 pages
Singapore (English-language)
Editor-in-chief: Greg Grigorian
Creative director: Vicson Guevara
Design: Miracle Liu & Que Junyi
‘There is no life outside the playground’
This newspaper-sized publication—the pages open up to A1—is published by Pop Mart, the Chinese toy company behind the Labubu key ring collectibles. It’s a big, bold, graphically strong piece of print that celebrates analogue and real life experiences.
Subtitled ‘The Future Issue’, this sophomore edition interrogates the temporal parameters of ‘the future’—as editor-in-chief Greg Grigorian surmises: ‘“the future” isn’t a fixed place. It’s only a mental tool we use to make sense of our current anxieties and desires. Every utopia or apocalypse we dream up is just a mirror for whatever mess we’re standing in right now.’ The focus of this issue then, is not to forecast, but to provide a platform for the established and emerging creatives using the future as a guide to reflect on and shape the present. On the cover, which also doubles as a fold-out poster, it’s Oscar-winning actress Michelle Yeoh, hugging a life-size Labubu; inside, she speaks to Meng-Yun Wang about living in—and learning from—the moment.
Also included: a chain bracelet, referencing Pop Mart’s iconic mascots and personalised tarot.