Reading: SPAN issue of Draconian Switch

Draconian Switch is an art and design e-magazine published in Trinidad by Richard Rawlins with the collaboration of a group of artists, designers, and writers, many of whom work in the advertising industry. Each issue can be downloaded as a PDF, and the online archive also includes several one-off artists' publications.

Paramaribo SPAN curators Christopher Cozier and Thomas Meijer zu Schlochtern invited Rawlins to Suriname in late February 2010 to observe and participate in the opening events of the SPAN exhibition. The result is a special issue of Draconian Switch, which is now available for download.

Incorporating numerous images, works by the SPAN artists, and texts drawn from the SPAN blog, this special issue is Rawlins's personal creative response to Paramaribo SPAN, in the language of visual design. It offers another entry-point into the conversations provoked by the entire SPAN project.





The cover features examples of Rawlins's "Suriname alphabet", a series of images of letterforms collected around Paramaribo.

(Note: this issue of Draconian Switch includes streaming video, so it is best viewed in Adobe Acrobat Reader with a live Internet connection.)