MISSION
South Asian Avant-Garde (SAAG) began as an argument that South Asians have claimed avant-garde traditions since before the word was coined. They experimented wildly in form, function, and craft; some enormously impacted “European” avant-gardism. After all, “South Asia” has rarely been the locus of those histories. (See: “Picasso manqué syndrome”)
How do we carve out such a leftist magazine in the contemporary media landscape when traditional media is shuttering and where literary magazines, art exhibits, and academic journals often exist as silos? By compensating both our immensely hard-working staff and contributors. By publishing work that is thoughtful, rigorous, and self-reflective about the global left: work that connects the local and the global, work that is unafraid but not provocative simply for the sake of it, and work that is internationalist in scope. By traipsing across genres and modes of art. Perhaps most critically, we carve out our space by eschewing the boundaries and binaries implied by the term “South Asia,” emphasizing syncretic connections and mellifluous exchanges of knowledge that do not foreclose intellectual thought to borders.
SAAG exists to create a genuinely activist-literary space. It does not seek to preach to the choir or provide a drifting sense of “representation.” Rather, SAAG hopes to thicken “South Asian” intellectual thought through furious expansion and lively clash.
Subscribe below to get the chance to become a member of SAAG early and get early access to our online store (under construction), discounts to a dizzying variety of new merch, including subscription boxes for books, zines, board games, archival art prints, our first print issue, access to events in cities across the globe, our entire archive, and active collaboration with the editorial team.
We have a lot of exciting new places to go, grassroots organizations to partner with, and stories to tell. We’d love for you to join us in interrogating and shaping South Asian Avant-Garde Vol. 2.
South Asian Avant-Garde is published by 501(c)(3) nonprofit South Asian Avant-Garde, Incorporated.
DESIGN
The design system for Volume 2 of SAAG is wildly different to that of Volume 1, for many reasons. Read more on the process and conceptual thinking underlying the changes in the design system here.
Primary sans typeface: Neue Haas Grotesk by Monotype.
Serif body text: Caslon Ionic & Antique No. 6 by Commercial Type.
Display face, Issue 1: TT Ricks by TypeType Foundry.
Our colophon (representing the collective above) is inspired by Rabindranath Tagore's painting Head Study.
COLLECTIVE
We are an unwieldy, globe-spanning collective (see: masthead) of forty-six South Asian writers, editors, academics, organizers, translators, playwrights, journalists, visual artists and designers. We share a deep political commitment to radical art that says something new about power and inequality.
CHANGES
As crises deepen both in and around South Asia, we extend our mission to encompass other parts of the world. Part of our mission is to forge new communities and build upon long-running traditions of solidarity across oceans, languages, and nations. The Vertical is a column that includes essential stories from around the world, featuring voices that offer a more profound introduction to critical issues impacting regions not limited to South Asia.
Our reorganized categories allow various forms of work to be presented in any category. The Vertical will publish timely op-eds and dispatches in any format, whether prose, comic, or photo essay. Read Issue 1 here.
