ISSUE 02: Against Pleasure

Elaine Scarry once wrote that “pain has no voice, but when it at last finds a voice, it begins to tell a story.” The Vermin’s second issue begins to tell that story –  not exclusively through the lens of pain, but through the negation of pleasure that ranges from suffering to the banal. Against the backdrop of our feel-good pleasure-centric political and cultural terrain in the capitalist hubs of the Global North, we hope this issue offers an invitation toward political questioning beyond the pleasure principle.

Pieces in Issue 02 include political essays, poetry, short stories, sculpture, illustration, and photography, touching on themes of consumption, sound, speech, food, psychoanalysis, and so much more.

Contributions: 

Ricky Varghese – Venice After Gaza
Andrew Donnelly – Funnell Tongue
Margot Fabre – Leftovers
Anupa Mistry – Bushnell Meditation
Michael Deforge – Untitled
Alex Bucik – Cat O' Nine Tails
Fan Wu – Bon Vivant's Primordial Braying
Angel Callander – Moving Under the Influence of the Most Received Stars
Ananda Gabo  – How to Extract Prodigiosin from a Pathogen
Kawai Shen – Moshing in a New Millennium
June Ng – Sesame Dreams

SPECS:

︎Designed by Fahdad Atin and Monica Chung
︎60 pages, 6.8" wide by 10’’ tall, four colour print, perfect bound

    

ISSUE 01: Acknowledge
the Cockroach

Launch yourself into a world where all veils are ripped away from the inhibited, sanitary, and illusory world we live in with a copy of The Vermin’s inaugural issue: Acknowledge the Cockroach.

Pieces in Issue 01 include expository and politically charged essays, radical and thought-provoking short stories, vulgar and bodily prose and poetry, and striking visuals including photography, sculpture, and painting.

CONTRIBUTORS: 

Alex V. Green – Notes on the Swarm
Nick Taylor – Cicada Sex/Death Ritual
Katy Catchpole – Cavewall
DRC – Ana’s Clinic
Wafa Ktaech – Killer High Life
R.A. Dempsey – IT’SMYPARTY!!! and Reap and sow, ad nauseum
William Normand-Robichaud – Nebula and Peel
Takin Raisifard – France in an Age of Self-Cannibalism
Jolina Calayag – wor$hip and Bread
Jade Walker – Blood Ritual
Elham Hazfi – Sculptures
Elif Sinem Erdem – Boyghost
Razvan Anton – Natural Decay and Chicago South
Nia Hampton – A Christ-Like Thing
Kody Cava – 406 West Main
Fauxbear – Finding Filth
Carey Graham – World + Systems = Filth 

SPECS:

︎Designed by Fahdad Atin and Monica Chung
︎64 pages, 6.8" wide by 10’’ tall, four colour print, perfect bound