Why Make the Loculus Zine?
Loculus means a pocket or a cavity for holding something of personal value. It was the name of the satchel the Roman legionnaires used to carry their personal belongings, and it is also the name of the niche where bodies are buried in the catacombs. Loculus zine is like a pocket that holds my ideas. It is also pocket-sized so it can be easily stowed, and it has within it a pocket that holds a little surprise.
The audience for such a thing as a “zine” is, by nature, minuscule, and, as a business, it is certain to fail. Yet, there is something daring and audacious in the brazenly futile and nearly invisible effort that comes from working far and away from a known publisher or an established brand; to make something handmade and rare, when so much in the world measures success in the thousands and millions of likes and clicks. All I have is a few dozen copies, made in my own handwriting and with my own drawings. It represents my voice, my experience, and my understanding; that is all it is and can ever be.
By making a zine, I imagine myself in the company of other artists like William Blake and Francisco Goya, who had the work they were employed at in their everyday lives and, in their off hours, kept themselves going with work they shared only in secret or to close friends. It was this other work they are mostly remembered for today, and no doubt it was this work that sustained them artistically.
The design of Loculus was intended to be hand-crafted, and each one is distinct in some way, but they all share common aesthetic and structural similarities. The ideas inside are wide-ranging, provocative, and intended to inspire thought and action. I always strive to include both practical guidance that people can use and philosophical ideas that can alter the way people perceive the world. Each copy is collaged with a unique art paper, hand printed from a linoleum block, and folded with an inside pocket that contains a mini-comic.
The mini-comic inserted into Loculus, Two Clowns in a Hole, is based on a puppet show I created during the COVID pandemic. The characters, Ralph and Louie, represent the two sides of our brain, and their antics in the hole are a humorous look at the way our minds deceive us.
The words on the back cover. “A VOUS DE JOYER” is a French expression that means: “IT’S YOUR TURN TO PLAY.” These were the final words of the Situationist comic, the Return of the Durutti Column, which was published for the student protests in Strasbourg in October 1966. The small image of the dwarf holding the flower comes from the Orange Alternative movement that was an artistic revolutionary movement that used humor and absurdity to fight autocracy and rigid ideology.
Read a translation of the Return of the Durutti Column here: https://libcom.org/article/return-durutti-column-andre-bertrand