Issue 19.2 of un Magazine, ‘We Swear We Saw This. Drawings about notebooks and notebooks about the wor(l)ds,’ guest-edited by Azza Zein, was launched in Naarm across two events.
On Saturday, 31 January at Dukkana, Coburg, contributors Carlos Eduardo Morreo, Tina Stefanou, Hugh Magnus, and Azza Zein read from and discussed their work. The event opened with a spontaneous performance by Tina and Thomas, staged within an old fridge space. The intervention animated the issue’s divination card project, interweaving Azza’s reading of Tina’s text. The discussion panel began with Hugh’s art historical reflection on Bea Maddock, followed by Carlos reading and discussion exploring liberation theology, Venezuela as a suspended state, and the act of witnessing.
The second launch was held on Saturday, 7 February at Walker Street Gallery, Dandenong, alongside Ibrahim Ahmed’s exhibition, ‘Amidst the Absence, a Present is Felt’. Contributors Marcela Gómez Escudero, Miriam La Rosa, Marcus McKenzie, Georgia Mulholland, and Azza Zein presented performances and readings, followed by a dynamic panel discussion. The conversation moved fluidly between audience and contributors, touching on notebooks and marginalia, place and psycho-geography, erasure, resilience, and the ethics of witnessing.
