Heavy Bass Magazine Island
Independent Publishing × Local Culture ExhibitionProject Type
Group Exhibition / Independent Publishing & Cultural Discourse
Time & Location
From 13 September 2025
Dahua City Performing Arts Center, Beijing, China
Initiator & Host
Sanlian Arts & Culture Club (三联艺文Club)
Role
Exhibiting Magazine
Teochew Echo《回南天》
Art Director & Co-founder:
Cai Boxuan (Boosen Tsai)
Background
Heavy Bass Magazine Island is the inaugural offline exhibition initiated by Sanlian Arts & Culture Club, dedicated to independent and niche magazines in China and beyond. The project approaches each independent publication as an “island” — a self-contained yet interconnected cultural territory formed through long-term observation, specific communities, and resistant editorial positions.
In response to information overload and algorithm-driven content consumption, the exhibition foregrounds independent publishing as a slow, intentional, and material-based cultural practice. The first edition takes “locality” as its central keyword, examining how place-based knowledge, memory, and lived experience continue to generate contemporary cultural narratives.
Description
The exhibition brings together over 30 independent magazines, local research collectives, and cultural initiatives, presenting publications as active agents in cultural production rather than passive documentation. Through printed matter, archival materials, visual displays, and spatial narratives, Heavy Bass Magazine Island constructs a collective map of local practices across regions.
Teochew Echo《回南天》 participated as an exhibiting magazine, presenting its editorial exploration of the “South” as a fluid, migratory, and transregional concept. Originating from eastern Guangdong and southern Fujian, the magazine examines how history, folk culture, diaspora, and contemporary life intersect across the South and Southeast Asia. Its participation positions independent publishing as a method of cultural archiving — one that records what is overlooked, unstable, or at risk of disappearance.
Rather than offering definitive interpretations of “locality,” the exhibition frames it as a lived and evolving condition — shaped by time, mobility, and long-term commitment. Independent magazines, in this context, function as cultural infrastructures: slow-moving, resilient, and capable of sustaining alternative narratives beyond mainstream visibility.
Outcomes
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Large-scale group exhibition featuring 30+ independent magazines and cultural initiatives
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National-level public exposure through Sanlian Life Weekly’s media network
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Positioned independent publishing as a form of place-based cultural practice
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Strengthened cross-regional connections among editors, researchers, and cultural organisers