20 (PARA) Seconds, Issue 8 – The Tide

20 Seconds is a print-only magazine for experimental music and art. It’s built by and for designers, writers and photographers who feel they’re not being challenged enough by what they’re reading and seeing.

But more importantly, 20 Seconds is about engaging with what’s relevant to us. As a community, we’re intrinsically wired to discuss, debate and share. Inspired by other publications proving that print is not dead and neither are honesty or independence, 20 Seconds Magazine is about documenting those expressions.

It’s also a dialogue, founded on fluidity. And the conversation is something we feel can last as long as the ink on the pages.

In response to the mundane programming, sponsored-content-dependent, stock-photo-generated presentations to which we all suffer, we propose a solution. Published twice annually, 20 Seconds will be a collection of original photography, longform journalism, poetry, interviews and more.

20 Seconds is not interested in stories for stories’ sake. Or in the same headshot flooding your devices in involuntarily advertised form. It is interested in bold art, fearless music and the real people behind it.

As a publication, we’re independent of major advertising corporations and click-bait titles, but not of our readers. Without the financial support of our community, we cannot produce the type of quality, independent journalism and design that we want to contribute to our cultural landscape.

Adventurous music and art take risk; they can be wonderfully inclusive. That’s why we’re collaborating with our favourite photographers, poets, musicians, DJs and artists of all dispositions to articulate our perspective.

Together, we can succeed in exploring work that continues to intrigue and resist.

As a collection it will last a while, individually a lifetime. But definitely more than 20 Seconds.

In this issue:

Issue 8, “The Tide,” looks into the cyclical nature of social and political movements. In order to do so we take inspiration from our often seemingly lunar obtuseness and incapacity to deal with the errors our planet’s inhabitants continue to make. There is little to say that has not been said, or eroded, after years of Russia waging war on Ukraine, Israel committing genocide on the Palestinian people, and now bombing Lebanon, funded by the US, Germany, and many others; fascism soaring in the polls and warming the seats of leaders in so many countries we’re beginning to lose count.

Still, we rely on our notions of publishing, of speaking and writing resistance, even as governments continue to abuse the activists doing so on the streets. For the artists in 20 Seconds Issue 8, the tide is something to be challenged, of which to be conscious, a malleable energy to be harnessed, in the form of pain, or even trauma.

Featuring:

Daniel Falb

Eric Maltz

Garth Erasmus

Ilona Witkowska

Rewinding Boalândia

Nour Ouayda

Rosanna Marie Pondorf

Sokołowsko

Stefanos Levidis

Thandiwe Msebenzi

Zakirah Rabaney

156 pages, Perfect bound, Softcover