Good studying: Membership Sandwich will make your cultural palate tingle
While most food magazines rely on the proven formula of recipe ideas and interviews with celebrity chefs, the Indie Mag Club Sandwich focuses on a completely different side of our relationship with food.
Halfway between a magazine and a book, the annual publication is held as a solo exhibition by artist and writer Anna Broujean, who acts as editor-in-chief, art director and designer.
Banner image: Alexander Coggin
The magazine was founded in 2015 after Broujean graduated from the French photography school ENSP. It started her life to play her creative muscles. "I was in Montreal for six months and wanted to return to Europe with something else for my portfolio," she says.
“During my studies, I did an internship at Actes Sud, where I worked on the production of art books. I wanted to create a magazine that gathers everything I knew how to do and that gave me enough room to experiment. I have to learn new things all the time, otherwise I'm bored. Thanks to that, I have a very strange resume! "
From the very beginning, Club Sandwich's mission has been to explore the cultural and social importance of food. "I have a passion for food in a theoretical approach and at that time I could not find any magazines that talk about food as a social science while still having fun and a strong interest in art. In my vision, these three elements had to be connected The articles range from history, sociology and anthropology to business, politics and art, ”says Broujean.
Each issue of the bilingual magazine focuses on a different food. The first issue was devoted to the humble egg, with features that deal with everything that throwing an egg means as a political statement to the cult of egg cup collectors.
Hot cocoa from Lisa Vaccino
Subsequent editions looked at mushrooms – including an article on the moral issue of eating mushrooms as a vegan – and cucumbers, examining how food was born out of the need to preserve fresh cucumbers at a time of scarcity.
In its latest issue, the magazine takes up our perception of chocolate. “When choosing chocolate as a theme, we thought that it would be a fun and entertaining subject. But when we looked around, so many darker topics emerged: colonialism, sexism, racism, slavery, public health problems. We decided to dive headfirst and accept that this would be a more difficult issue than before, ”said Broujean.
Features include how advertising made the black body sell chocolate throughout history, how white chocolate is associated with social class issues, and an article on why most chocolate desserts are inspired by the shape of landscapes .
There are also a number of brilliant artist commissions, including Alexander Coggin, who turns his lens on a chocolate spa, and each pre-order of the edition includes a bar of Tony & # 39; s Chocolonely, a chocolate company dedicated to combating modern day slavery and child labor Cocoa has prescribed farms in West Africa.
As for the design and art direction of the edition, the cover shows a piece by late Latinx artist Chuck Ramirez ("I chose it because it shows chocolate without actually showing chocolate," says Brojean) while on his Versatile is a mixture of aesthetics and works of art by well-known and aspiring artists.
"I'm not a graphic designer, so I have a lot of freedom – or at least I allow myself a lot of freedom," says Broujean. “When I started the project, I wanted a magazine that could be trendy and serious, fun and smart. So that's how I design it. I like colors and I don't like following rules. I don't have a layout and for every piece in every issue I start from scratch. "
Looking ahead to the next edition of Club Sandwich, Broujean is determined that it should be more versatile than ever. "At the moment, my main focus is to make the magazine as diverse and comprehensive as possible," she says.
“I started working on the chocolate question in 2018. We then had to change and solve the pickle problem. When I returned to chocolate in 2019, I found that I was addressing the same people. I then spent a lot of time looking for different sales outlets, going to different sources, communities, rooms, and I am so excited about the talent I came across. As a result, the chocolate edition has a diverse group of artists, but definitely not enough. I can't wait to work on the next one. "
The chocolate edition has now been published; Clubsandwichmagazine.bigcartel.com