The magazine was on the shelf and the first thing that i picked up, I was immediately drawn to this magazine. The first thing that I noticed was the size – A3 -, demands your attention, gives importance. The cover is the picture of a young man, the eyes immediately captured my attention, eyes that tell a story. They make want to know what he has to tell.
The dialogue in the magazine is mostly told in black and white photographs, what relates to the titel ‘’The spoken history of the young worker’’. The pictures are strong, dynamic, a lot of energy. There are also pages out of newspapers or other magazines from all over the world relating to the young worker. I think they this to connect the workers from all over the world as one unity.
What really spoke to me about the young worker is how relatable they are. Boy’s my age working, revolting, search for freedom. A peak into a different age but we still want the same at the core. The story of the everyday people that is not what I typically think of when I think of design.
The Worker Photographers from the ’20s were the first amateur photographers to use the camera politically. They were pioneer in what we could call a ‘civil and collective use’ of photography. Far from having a rhetorical approach to Worker Photography, they are interested in their radical practice of photography based on self-representation, self-publishing and image critique
On page 3 you immediately get to know the spirit of the workers, what they have to say.
They are all different
temper
ambition
adaptability
team spirit
On the first page you have a collage for the youth photography programme and on the 4 and on page 4 an NEGATIV-ENTWICKLUNG. So on the first 3 pages you have the spirit of the worker and an mannual how to tell the story of the people. A manual to carry on the revolution.
Page 45/46 touched me the most, the plumber woman that dreams of going to college and the trainees that riot after the suicide of one their colleagues. Both heavy in the themes, and emphasizes by the word SCUM how we treat these human beings.
What i loved about the magazine is the IMAGE ACT, you can take it out of the magazine and made out of green paper. Image Act takes inspiration from the speech act, a concept in linguistics that explains how words can have qualities that go beyond the information they convey and materially affect our existence. These sound files are archived and accessible online at werkermagazine.org/imageact . The speeches are given in their own languages.
Werker correspondent aims to develop an autonomous and economically self-sustainable community of reporters and subscribers. the intention of this network is to function as a direct unmediated information source, communicating the everyday realities in different parts of the world.
Rogier Delfos is based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. He studied a BA Graphic Design at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, an MA Critical Studies at the Sandberg Institute and is currently teaching at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. In his artistic practice he works with publishing as a communication technology that creates a multitude of social behavior. He experiments with an array of techniques of publishing to express his desires and micropolitics and spread alternative views on labour, gender, education and queer sexualities. His definition of ‘publishing’ has a wide and foremost artistic understanding; he is using various forms of printed matter, film, online platforms, installations, workshops and—as a more recent involvement—by way of writing and performative lectures.
Because this magazine is all about telling the story of the daily worker, how do tell a story. I decided to show the world of the the daily worker at the Albert Cuyp market. Young boys that work there but also men that work there for over 20 years. The pictures are taken in the night when they breaking of the market, that is when the workers have the most interactions with each other. Chatting with your neighbour from 3 stalls down, breaking off to rebuilt it all tomorrow.
Werker Magazine #1, designer: Marc Riog Blesa & Rogier Delfos, Rietveld Library Cat. no: werk 2a/b