Photos by James Parker
Shannan Elinor Smith: Creatively speaking, what do you find are the major differences between NYC and London?
James Wright: The thing that strikes me most directly is the openness to collaboration in the US. I feel like the community––whether it's music, film, or art––is much more compact [in London] and in many ways more elitist. When I come to the states, there is a willingness to collaborate and to take risks. I think that willingness to try and fail applies across every level and every part of society in America. If you come together and do something and it doesn't quite work out, that’s okay. You do it again. Whereas in London, there's an interconnected intellectual network that you have to tap into.
Why did you want to divide So It Goes into seven chapters (The Actors, The Directors, The Artists, The Collection, The Musicians, The Places, and The Writers)?
When we started out, we looked at the newsstand, and there's definitely a micro approach to publishing now. Lots of people said you need to know your market––you need to be a food, travel, or fashion magazine. We wholeheartedly disagree with that; we thought there was a cross-cultural arena to be filled. We decided we never wanted to do a head shot of an actor and a questionnaire. Instead, we do a 500-word entry and a twelve-page editorial so the content is actually given room to breathe. By structuring the magazine across seven chapters, we pick two or three artists for each chapter and really give them their own space.
We also wanted to have a balance between visuals and copy, and bring back long-form journalism but combined with beautiful photo stories. We try to fuse the best things about magazines into one. The type of person that reads our magazine might read Bullett or Dazed, but they might also read The Economist, and I don't think that there is a title—forgive my arrogance—that merges those two.
Why does the magazine start with actors and end with writers?
When we considered the reader's journey, it made sense to punctuate it so that you are lead into it visually. There is still copy there, but we wanted something that was attention-grabbing. I felt it would be a bit jarring if we opened up with the writers. We want that to be something that you get to at the end, and you give it due thought and due time.
The theme of Asia is very present in this issue. Is there a reason for that?
I think initially, we were drawn into Michael Wolf’s work because of our feature article "Tokyo Compression." The artwork for architectural density by Michael is similarly about the claustrophobia of Asian cities, but shot in big panor