A/PART is the final issue of the Bear Deluxe Magazine, and a celebration of art and the environment with a decentralized editorial model created to bring us together over the course of 2020-2021.

Overview

A/PART is issue #38 of The Bear magazine, formerly published as the Bear Deluxe, an independent, Pacific Northwest-based, nationally distributed magazine exploring environmental issues through the creative arts.

This issue was created as a time capsule brimming not only with art, but with the stories of the humans making art in this moment (2020–2021). Rather than paint a broad picture, A/PART reveals bright glimpses of what it looks like to fight, to grieve, to celebrate, and to take up space. A/PART grapples with a sense of urgency at the intersections of place-based art, identity, and the environment in an expansive sense.

CONTEXT

After a pause in publishing and programming by the parent organization, a group of key players and board members came together to consider the future of this nearly-25-year-old project. We wanted to make it feel as vital as it had when it was founded. With a group of contributors that had been with the magazine for many years, it was critical to bring in new voices to the magazine. The magazine should live in the worlds of art and climate justice, and specifically focus on intersections of environmentalism and social justice. It should showcase more work representing up-and-coming artists and thought leaders from underrepresented and marginalized communities. And the project should be led by this next generation rather than simply “granted access” to a platform or amplified. However, as an all-volunteer staff, this was a tricky challenge. We debated how to leverage the work that had been done over many years, versus simply disbanding and letting what’s next become established. We had an opportunity to leverage a grant that we had already received for one issue—the organization would either use it or lose it—to either take the organization into the future or go out with a bang.

CHALLENGE

We wanted to shift from a traditional magazine into something more experimental that embodies the spirit of the young ORLO organization, as well as one that felt vital and at home in our current cultural moment. We wanted this publication to feel necessary, inspirational, and unique. We wanted the look and feel to balance a rawness that speaks to the natural world, with forward-thinking, sophisticated perspectives and a clear sense of concept and purpose.

How might we curate content from BIPOC and new voices in an honest way that recognized our own biases, while not tokenizing the artists and creatives we feature? How could we create new forms of connection and inspiration? In this moment where we felt disconnected from each other, how could we use art and the environment as a spark to bring people and ideas closer together?

How might we use the lens “Endure” to shape content around the more just, inclusive, and aware world we want to create post-pandemic?

How could we support artists and “making” in a time of hardship?

SOLUTION

Partner with individual thought leaders who exemplify the values we outlined in our vision work to act as curators for the issue. We would reach out to this small, diverse mix of artists / activists / producers / creatives / directors / writers / thinkers and have each one nominate or “sponsor” an up-and-coming artist who inspires them and is working in the intersections of climate justice and creativity. We would interview both the sponsors AND the featured artists, or support a conversation between the sponsor and artist, to better understand their perspectives, processes, and inspirations. This content would be the heart of the issue.

We would feature five creative pairs throughout the magazine, showcasing artists’ work along with selected interview quotes / answers and statements. So, each BDM feature would be a full package of images, artist statements, calls-to-action, commentary, and/or discussion. The specific format from each article would differ, dictated by the coming together of two creatives and the BDM. “Articles” would be conceived as visual features, with supporting Q+A, or quotes, or statements, or dialogue.

In this way, the issue became a vessel for broadening creative networks at a time when our circumstances required us to look for community and support in changing ways. In a sense, we were questioning our approach more generally as a result of the current moment, but this is necessary work in any case.

We wanted the piece to have more depth and levels beyond showcasing artwork we liked. We believed we could achieve our goals by recognizing we’re not necessarily the ones who should cultivate the content, but instead support a platform that enabled connection and discovery through our resources. We would write a brief statement framing the issue.

“This work is necessary, it is a critical part of our collaboration as creatives and as separate design leaders, and it is a natural evolution for where each of us sits in our own practice. It is an opportunity to pass the torch, a spark for something new, and a culmination of our work. It is a labor of love we can take on together, and that is a meaningful way to close this chapter.”

DESIGN DETAILS