Colophon2009 - International Magazine Symposium Luxembourg

Platanoverde

Platanoverde

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A&B Producciones

Caracas, Venezuela

Centro San Ignacio, Torre Kepler,Piso 6, Oficina 603-604, 10600

Email: platanoverde@platanoverde.com

Category: Architecture, Design, Visual Art, Writing
Periodicity: Quarterly
Language: Spanish
Format: 210 x 300 mm
Circulation: 5,000
Web: http://www.platanoverde.com

Founded in 2003

Exclusive Interview

With each one of the 11 editions we have released so far we have learnt something different from ourselves

What is your magazine about?
Plátanoverde works as a showcase for up-and-coming talents in the fields of visual arts, design, architecture, writing and music; being them from Venezuela, South America and sometimes, anywhere in the world.

Who’s behind the project? Tell us about the founders, their backgrounds and their motivations!
We are the editorial branch of A&B Producciones, a very recognized production house which begun its operations in 1996, doing commercials and cinema productions, and which eventually grew up to include a hip hop recording label [ Subterraneo Records, 2001 ], plátanoverde [ 2003 ], and some other amazing projects still on the works. The editorial team which founded plátanoverde was conformed by Leo Felipe Campos [ chief editor ], Jesus Ernesto Parra [ editor ], Jessica Boducha [ editor ] and the design team made by TOHYTO and MODO, two of the most recognized visual artists of the country. The original team nowadays also includes Lope Gutiérrez-Ruiz, music journalist and editor of the web edition and INKCORE a visual artist and designer as well. If something is to be said about our backgrounds it would be ¨different¨, we all come from different places, have different values and completely different interests: these differences ranging from music, to literature to even the hot sauces we like. Nevertheless, our confluence points would be a shared interest in exploring subjects and aesthetics that we would never be allowed to do in any other media, to give space and recognition to new artists, to explore urban culture and finally, to find different ways to make culture reachable to our audience while having fun at it.

How do you produce one issue? How much time do you spend on it? How big is your team?
Our team is composed of our chief editor, two designers and two editors [one of them for our web edition]. For each edition of the magazine we choose a subject of our interest and then invite a recognized figure in the field of journalism or literature to be our Guest Editor, due to his/her special knowledge of that subject. So far we have invited figures like Jose Roberto Duque, Edmundo Bracho, Boris Muñoz, Corina Lipavsky, Rafel Uzcategui and Ednodio Quintero, among others; and we have dealt with issues such as violence, death, religion, utopia, counterculture and imposture, respectively. The idea of inviting a Guest Editor comes from the fact that all of us at the magazine are quite young [ hence the name plátanoverde: “green plantains” an expression which means still too young to be eaten ] so him/her could provide an expert insight on the subject and we can put, well, anything necessary to approach the subject in a manner that can satisfy us all. We spend about 3 to 5 months in each edition but right now we are working to reduce that time to 2 or 3 months.

What have been the important steps in the life of your magazine?
Releasing our first edition! With each one of the 11 editions we have released so far we have learnt something different from ourselves, the media world, the art world, and specially, our audience. The release events we have done from the beginning have grown from a 50-people party at a punk bar to a 3000+ persons open air festival at one of the most important squares of Caracas, so you can say that creating a sense of community has also being one of the most important steps we have done in our 3-year history.

What are the key ingredients for the success of your magazine?
I don’t think that any of us feels completely right with the word successful, but if something helped us to reach the place were we are right now, that would be a deep interest in our readers, complemented with not paying much attention to what our readers want, constant work, complete compromise, some guts to do what nobody will like to do, and some heavy, heavy multitasking. That and alcohol. Rum mainly.

What are the difficulties you are confronted with? What would be “the” thing to help the magazine to improve?
A conservative attitude from the advertising world basically. Most of the times we do whatever the hell we want to do with the magazine, it comes out amazing and our audience gives us great feedback, so some trust from advertisers to create joint projects or advertorials would be the next step to achieve.

Where do you want the magazine to be in five years?
Anywhere but just a museum. In the hands of 14-year olds with spray paint and free time, in unconventional classrooms across the world, in mixed media festivals gone wrong, in free-thinking hands, in alternatives. In a probe headed to Mars would also be a nice thing to toast someday.

Tell us about your audience! Who are the readers of your magazine?
Anybody interested in any field of the arts could be a category, but we believe it would fall short: is more like students and professors, artists and followers, designers and writers, globe-trotting jet-setters and poor-ass poets, they guy who owns my college, the girl that gives me the ride. Anybody who cares about creation. Anybody who doesn’t care about much at all.

Is remaining independent important to you? Is it part of the strategy?
Yes. No. Strategy?

Do you think that magazine readers still need to watch TV?
Not a though question since none of us enjoys television, so here it comes: Nobody needs to watch television. Read a book, go outside and know your city, make love, read a book, learn something, sell you television and invite us for a beer, read a fucking book.

What is your relationship with your printer? Does he play a main role in your development?
We have a very good commercial relation with Mr. Acea, he’s a very kind men.

Which magazines influence you most? What are you looking for in other magazines?
Maybe Etiqueta Negra, Malpensante, El Sadico Ilustrado, Enser, Rockdelux, Tiger Magazine, but just maybe. You’ll need to ask our designers what influences them, because for us, they are just crazy people with laptops.

What do you think of your issue 01, when you look back at it?
We are still amazed by it, we think is the most honest work to express something in paper that we have seen in a long while. We feel proud, we contemplate it in silence for a little while and then we go off to do a new one, not paying any attention to it.

What question did you never ask in your magazine but would have liked to?
Don’t you think this is a very dumb question?

How many magazines do you buy / get / read each month? Do you qualify yourself as a maniac?
A little bit more than ten among the whole team, we are more much maniac about books than magazines. And music. And movies. And women. And rum.

E-mail interview from “26.09.2006”. © Colophon2007.com – Mike Koedinger Editions SA (Luxembourg)