What the bloody hell is this?
Not a bad question to ask, given what you’ve seen. it was all a zine exists because of an uneasy sense of stagnation from a restricted life during the COVID-19 pandemic (not to be confused with the COVID-20 or COVID-21 pandemic if you are reading this in the future). To try to put it succinctly and honestly (as much as I am capable of), I felt in a state of funk. I needed some sort of project to keep me sane. And it was all a zine is the project I decided on.
Isn’t it just a load of stuff with no editorial direction, no theme, or no higher concept for what it should be? And if it is, why should you bother giving it your time?
A body is found. It is dead. Severely decayed. Experts take fragments of bone in the hope to find a DNA based match. Nothing. They cross check the skull and teeth with the x-rays of those long missing. Nothing. There is no wallet, no clothing, no ID, no markings that allow for the body to be identified.
It is inconceivable to say that the person who died had no identity, even if they didn’t think they had one – even if they feared they were utterly indistinguishable; that they had led an utterly indistinguishable life; that they died indistinguishable. I suppose that would be an identity of sorts anyway. Not one that many of us could say we would hope for, but an identity nonetheless.
This is a zine, but I make no claim to have bothered thinking too hard about what a zine is or should be, or what this zine is or should be. Yet, it will surely end up having an identity all the same. Even if that identity is indistinguishable or it has no identity whatsoever, because that’s still an identity.
Karrim Jalali, Editor