Modern Matter / Compendium

Modern Matter Compendium, When I Was Seventeen

 

A chunky, special edition project from Modern Matter retaining the magazine's experimental streak and highly physical quality, while constructing a fictional narrative of being 17. Presented in a white cardboard box, it opens to reveal a hand-labelled cassette tape embedded into the cover and first 150 pages of the publication itself (all blank until that point, a move reprised from an earlier edition of the magazine.)

 

It's not a compendium of Modern Matter per se, rather a punk-ish mixed media reflection of creative director Olu Michael Odukoya's interests in data collection, nostalgia and fiction: there's a Civilization-eqsue archive of a decades' worth of Google Alerts, a photomontage pairing Odukoya's bronze sculptures with newspaper clippings to create an imaginary ‘Class of 76’, plus words from Philippa Snow, Hans Ulrich Obrist and others. 

 

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A groundbreaking biannual publication that merges the sometimes-chaotic approach to style and content found online with the careful consideration for production and the written word that has always characterized the very best print journals, Modern Matter is unlike any other magazine on the market. Named in honor of its focus on the now, as well as on the facets of art, style, design and culture that most matter to the team behind the magazine, it brings the personal into a sphere that’s typically commercial.

Described by the Serpentine’s Hans Ulrich Obrist as “the best magazine in London” and by Magma’s Marc Valli as “porn for a magazine editor”, Modern Matter is unique in its approach to blending the best of long-form culture writing with a fine-art sensibility and a high-fashion aesthetic; it is released biannually, and distributed internationally. Produced in-house at OMO Creates.