Raise Your Voice Zine

Raise Your Voice is a 5-month coaching trajectory initiated by Baltan Laboratories in collaboration with the alumni department of Design Academy Eindhoven and Master Institute of Visual Cultures of St. Joost ‘s-Hertogenbosch. This coaching trajectory is funded by KunstLoc Brabant (Impulsgelden) and Stichting Cultuur Eindhoven.

The idea of this zine is the stories hidden within the trajectory. Moments of collective reflection but also a presentation of what each contributor brings to the table. The zine follows the format of three chapters that speak of Community, Perspectives and Systems respectively. While the chapters have their own stories, they also follow an intersectional narrative of how the participants, who remain the content contributors of these three chapters weave the stories together. They present the overall umbrella of cultural practice through engagement with societal issues in parallel to practical development of their individual practices.

The zine also contains three essays by invited writers Silvio Lorusso, Gijs de Boer and Ned Kaar. Respectively writers of A School Knows No Stopwatch, Guises of the Gap and Independent Design: From Soldier of Fortune to Destiny’s Child.

The written contribution from the invited writers act as an envelope within the zine, that speaks of the theoretical knowledges that intersect in a coaching trajectory like RYV when contextualizing it in the cultural sector in the Netherlands. These contributions become the central thematic of the zine, both conceptually and practically but can be detached to be read as a separate entity, bringing different perspectives into the topics of design, design education, commodification, and necessity for professionalization.