Back to the Future

Your Future favorite: A new zine that promises compelling work by promising young artists

MANILA, Philippines - We are a page torn off from a book unwritten, a split second of a time not yet, an homage to an abandoned bar of abandon. We are a trivial detail to a hoax, the face of an unmet lover, a monument in a lost map. We are magic realists and fake-tionists. We are Future Zines. We are printed exploits in future tense.”

And just like that, Future Zines: Volume 01 announces its presence as your next zine obsession.

Edited by Nante Santamaria and art-directed by Elyoo Dela Cruz, the zine features work by a promising group of artists and photographers:

Cru Camara was still in the middle of the photography program in New York’s School of Visual Arts when she decided to return to Manila and start doing what she was learning. In this series, she photographs synecdochical forms in extreme closeups.

Czar Kristoff has been documenting the skateboarding scene around his vicinity — which is San Pedro, Laguna — but in a peripheral view, he zooms his lens into the abstract forms of his city, freeze-framed in black and white. Every day becomes a historic document.

Doktor Karayom does graffiti murals as the alter ego of the Technological University of the Philippines fine arts graduate Rasel Trinidad. He is part of the street art collective CVTY, based in the relatively suburban Cavite but doing projects all over the metro. As Doktor Karayom, Trinidad has a recurring set of child characters, all perpetually stuck in third grade, mired in the contradictions of innocence and violence, religion and paganism, the socially relevant and the trivially surreal.

James Go is an insider in Manila’s creative scene of young musicians, actors, gig producers, artists, and skateboarders. As a photographer, he has been documenting his friends — the likes of the internationally renowned musical producer Eyedress, the television celebrity Saab Magalona, the infamous concert producer Mei Bastes, and the members of the indie wave band Beeeyes.

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The zine launch will feature an art show by photographers Cru Camara, Czar Kristoff, and James Go as well as by illustrators Doktor Karayom and Justine Basa. There will be DJ sets by Mall Suicide (artists Jeona Zoleta and Pow Martinez), Paperboiz (Mav Bernardo and photographer/ADHD magazine editor Cenon Norial, III), Indiebon (Yuckzine editor Bonnapart Galeng), and Karlovv (party organizer Karlo Vicente of Aracama’s Homies and Blackmarket’s Dirty Hotdog!). It will be held in Today x Future, 7T Gen. Malvar St. Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City, starting at 9 p.m. tonight.