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