Zine Corner 9

Hello dear readers, the Library’s Good Boy returns for another vernacular corner 🙂

Today we are looking at “AMC2 Journal Issue 3: Preserves from the AMC Garden” AKA “London 2012 A Visitor’s Guide”. Archive of Modern Conflict’s “Preserves…” is a satirical tourist guide for visiting London during the Olympic Games. To me, this publication is especially prescient given the current protest and organizing against having the next Olympics in Los Angeles (see this excellent podcast for more information on that).

I don’t want to share too many pictures of this zine since part of the fun is the surprise of the sequencing choices, however sections include “cooking” (including a recipe for sheep brain on toast), a page detailing a stipulation making it legal to urinate in public as long as its on your own car, “Olympic History”, and a collection of fake public notices including one that says “Please No Sex Tourism”. Perhaps the neoliberal dogma of a pro-Olympic stance is summed up most succinctly on the back cover of the zine – with a sign that says “Stamp Out Sexism in Synchronised Swimming”.

A few different versions of this zine were printed, each with a different color scheme. Our copy is in burgundy, and is on view as part of the ICP Library “Je est un autre: The vernacular in photography” show.