via Feminist Review by Feminist Review on 2/8/08
Plazm Media, Inc.For an arts journal reckoning with the theme of collective memory, Plazm #29 is an intensely forward-thinking, singular, and fearless visual experience. Published annually by the Portland-based design agency Plazm Media, Plazm features artwork, photography, interviews, reviews, and fiction from a remarkably diverse and politically charged array of contributors. The result is a magazine that looks both to public themes and private responses.
At times, Plazm is challenging and explicit, asking readers to consider a warless world, to look at photos of Iraqi civilians, and to explore the history of partitions as would-be solutions to sectarian conflicts. Other times, Plazm goes local, featuring interviews with regional artists and musicians, Portland punk rock retrospectives, and photographic studies of ordinary people working to overcome extraordinary struggles. The result can be oddly intimate; here and there I felt as if I were looking through a private photo album, laced with political commentary.
The current issue of Plazm looks at the way we handle past events in present time. The first half or so of Plazm compares our own age to ages past, with perks including an interview with Yoko Ono, a side-by-side comparison of Nixon’s presidency with the current administration, and pictures of different, but linked, explosions along the Columbia River. The second hundred or so pages feature photos from a negative preservationist (Marilyn Monroe and Elvis are in the mix), an interview with the artist and musician J.D. Sampson, and ten artists’ responses to the theme “The End of War.”
Many, many more themes crop up in the pages of Plazm, but the best part of the magazine is that the edgy writing and bold graphics harmonize, instead of compete, with each other. Each page of Plazm is a visual delight. Seeing as the magazine only comes out once a year, it is well worth the ten dollars to read this oversized, colorful and incisive arts journal at your leisure.
Review by Barbara Smith
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