A°2020, le magazine de l’Anthropocène

At a time of a weakened planet, Bureau 205 and the École urbaine de Lyon [Lyon urban school: an interdisciplinary experimental project for research, PhD training and economic, social and cultural development of scientific knowledge] question the editorial process. The magazine A°2020 is the first result of this investigation.

Editing “anthropocene” means reflecting simultaneously on all aspects of the process, paying attention to people (authors, publishers, printers, designers, distributors, booksellers, librarians…) with the search for qualified and certified skills, attention to materials — from forest to paper, from plant to ink —, general attention to the optimization of human and material resources by favoring short distances in order to lessen the impact of transport, by imagining an editorial policy that’s inventive in order to limit waste.

Bureau 205 set out to design an object that could transmit the content gathered in this magazine whose authors come from various fields: academic, scientific, literary and artistic. Their contributions make it possible to grasp the concept of the Anthropocene from complementary points of view and gain a detailed understanding of the issues.

As we question ourselves more and more about the future habitability of the earth, about the just and ethical conditions for implementing the strategies of ecological reorientations of our cohabitations, it is crucial to make known the anthropocene realities, to analyze the dynamics at work, in particular those linked to urbanization and bringing into discussion what can guide our collective action.

Each part of the magazine has a specific layout, illustrating the complementarity of the contents and their mutual enrichment. To limit the magazine’s carbon footprint, only leftover paper available from the printer was used. The magazine is then printed on five different papers for this first issue.

The magazine exclusively uses typefaces created by designers affiliated with 205TF.