I was touched
by the time and effort it must have taken the archivist
activist
to scan all the pages of
27 issues
of Heresies magazine
for a digital archive of
every one page
of the 1970s feminist art periodical’s
16 years.
Each issue contained between
34 and 132
pages, meaning
that the total number of pages was
2,738
pages filled with
reviews photographs paintings stories songs collages and made by various teams
because Heresies issues
differed in themes
with differing groups of women
writing and designing
each of its
one pages
which were also filled, sometimes
with poetry, often
10 poems
in each.
If we consider that scanning
one page
took around
30 seconds
of flickering beams
it means that the person scanning the whole magazine
needed
23 hours
to press every one page onto the scanner bed
with their fingers
but that’s not taking into account the time
it would have taken
the person scanning
to stop, and maybe read all of Heresies’
104 poems
which Olga Broumas
might once have called
scorpions
and which Nancy Morejón
might once have called
powerful lamps.
Pauline Piguet (she/her) is a graphic designer based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She’s mainly active in the cultural and artistic fields, and has a keen interest in and passion for publications and printed matter.
This text was produced as part of the L.i.P. workshop, and has previously been published in the Feminist Findings zine.
