This issue of Korea's GRAPHIC brings together several projects by designers, design researchers, and artists who are concerned with contemporary social issues. In response to the 2016 Paris Agreement, the environmental group Extinction Rebellion (XR) was launched in 2018. In 2017, the Me Too movement erupted on social media with the hashtag #MeToo. The year 2019 witnessed the death of George Floyd and Hong Kong’s democracy movement. Since early 2020, the whole world has been affected by the coronavirus.

GRAPHIC invited ten teams to approach such contemporary issues from various angles, providing them with sixteen pages to convey their areas of research. For some of the participants, their sixteen pages took the form of a report, chronology, or journal, while others chose dialogues, interviews, Powerpoint, or coloring books to reinforce their arguments. The teams all shared the same kind of critically engaged viewpoint in their search for an appropriate means of expression. The collection of printed works emerge from different backgrounds and deal with different thematic concerns, yet nevertheless produce a constructive framework for discussion. Three short essays which expand upon the topics raised are also included. 

The contributions and essays have not been bound. Instead, they are included as separate brochures or flyers, and then placed inside a box. This formal gesture reflects the sharp rise in the use of postal services in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The intention is to give the impression of unboxing a gift—a gift of inspiration and social engagement.

Contributors include: Revue Faire, Studio Syndicat; Parallel-Parallel.com, Dorothee Dähler, Yeliz Secerli; Klasse Klima, Berlin University of the Arts; Yellow Object, Hong Kong Protest Poster Archive; SPINE, Tetsuya Goto; Inter Graphic Views, Ingo Offermanns; ORGD (Open Recent Graphic Design); Natural Enemies of Books, Studio MMS; Troublemakers 2020, Futuress; Studiengruppe Informationsdesign, Matthias Görlich; Sulki and Min; Prem Krishnamurthy and David Williams, Manchester Type.

Published by Propaganda Press, 2021

Text in Korean and English

200 pages, multiple publications, illustrated in color and b&w, 9 × 12 in.

Enclosed in screenprinted cardboard box which acts as slipcase,
9.25 × 12.2 inches

ISSN: 1975-7905