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Dear reader,

We present you our zine REUSE. This zine is a small exploration of the theme REUSE in the form of two semiotic analyses and a cultural review. In this issue we will talk about fashion, sustainability, street art, advertising and more.

The two essay’s both analyze forms of advertising. The fashion industry uses it to sell their clothes, in this particular case
either by telling you how much you can buy for how little like
Primark does or by selling you a
particular image or lifestyle. The
brand Everlane sells being
sustainable in the form of a sustainable
piece of clothing. You can also consider
the stickers and street art of OBEY by
Shepard Fairey, which are closely linked
to propaganda, as a form of advertising.
Instead of selling you products, it sells you a
message, a way of thinking, an ideology. But next
to that OBEY does have a clothing line that similarly as a brand like Everlane connotes a certain lifestyle, but in this case it is one of being rebellious, subversive. Wearing their clothing is a form of brand activism, wearing their clothes makes you feel like you are challenging the system.

The analyzed images also all have a quite aggressive tone, one says BUY the other says OBEY. But it does help to get the message across, they make you reflect on important issues like the climate crisis and of how dominant power structures are oppressing us. So therefore our message is REUSE.

The articles will show that we can reuse, recycle in different ways. To work with what you have, build on the work of others, gather waste materials and create your own piece of art or clothing. The OBEY campaign illustrates the reuse of
styles, Fairey’s images reference
a propaganda style and techniques
among others. It is a collage of
already existing works and styles
by other artists, put together in a
new context for it to be its own new
piece of art. This stylistic way of
reuse is translated in the design
of this zine. But you can also
recycle in a more literal sense, the
reuse of waste materials to create new
sustainable ones without creating extra waste which
is explored in more detail through a cultural review on the campaign “Amsterdam maakt er wat van campaign”.

Enjoy!

Image from The Medium is the Massage (1967) - Marshall McLuhan