Swimmers #1
160 x 210 mm, 196 pages
Japan (Japanese and English-language)
First published in 2023
Editor: Lisa Tsuchiya
Design: Yuka Tada
Swimmers is a new magazine from Japan exploring comfortable ways of (metaphorically) ‘swimming’ through life, acting as a shared communes for the exchange of personal experiences in the hopes of helping others feel less alone.
This inaugural edition, themed ‘Leave of Absence’, hears from nine contributors who took a hiatus from daily life to rest due to burnout, exploring the dynamic between work and rest, and ‘what it meant to face themselves’, alongside encouraging readers to contemplate their own relationship to selfcare. As editor Lisa Tsuchiya asserts: ‘I hope this reaches those of you who want to rest, those who feel unable to rest, and those who have someone close to them who is resting now.’ The testimonies featured delve into what led contributors to burnout, how they found sanctity—in the kitchen, listening to the radio, taking walks, staring at the ocean—what helped them recover, and how their lives changed afterwards. Woven between these accounts are three ‘roundtables’, with several guests hosted by Tsuchiya, discussing selfcare, mental health, and the support available to facilitate rest.
Imperfection is a design feature, rather than a bug, with an off-centre fold revealing a blue insert at the heart of the issue, bearing the words ‘Let Me Excuse Myself.’