ingénue magazine
– South Downs & High Weald
taking a stand against the uglification of the world
ingénu/e magazine and website’s raison d’être is to promote emerging creative talent of any genre, thus giving a platform to those who would otherwise find it hard to reach a wider audience. ingénu/e also aims to promote other lesser known creativity and keep readers up to date with cultural events coming to their area.
ingénu/e covers all fields of creativity: visual arts such as painting, photography, illustration, printmaking, sculpture, contemporary crafts; performing arts such as theatre, film, music, dance; as well as writing, design, even fashion and food. Creatives of all kinds often like to share their knowledge, so creative courses are also featured.
Additionally, through the magazine and website, ingénu/e aims to give advertisers a marketing avenue to their intended audience.
Work experience will be offered to students, aspiring creatives and members of the community, and marketing seminars for artists of all kinds are planned.
the printed magazine
ingénu/e is a free B5 size quarterly magazine which covers the South Downs and High Weald areas; this includes towns and cities such as Winchester, Alresford, Petersfield, Midhurst, Petworth, Brighton, Lewes, Worthing, Arundel, Chichester, Horsham, East Grinstead, Forest Row, Sheffield Park, Tunbridge Wells, Haywards Heath and Southampton.
The printed magazine has subscribers and can also be picked up from various outlets such as Cafés, Art Centres, Libraries, Theatres, Hotels, Tourist Information Centres and Visitor Centres, Galleries etc. The readership is calculated to be 10,000.
why ingénu/e ?
As the purpose of the magazine and website is to promote emerging creative talent, we chose the name ingénu/e to communicate the concept of being naïve, guileless and unworldly in the field one is entering into. This is often the situation when artists, of any genre, enter into their field more professionally. As we have personally experienced, it is not unusual to encounter challenging professional, economic and legal scenarios and then have to embark on a steep learning curve. In the French language ingénu refers to a male and ingénue to a female, so we are adopting ingénu/e in order to embrace both genders.
‘L’Ingénu’ is a satirical novella by the French writer Voltaire, published in 1767. The main character’s literal understanding of society and its values serves as both comic and satirical comment.
The word ingénue, meaning ‘an innocent or unsophisticated young woman’, is first recorded in English in Thackeray’s ‘Vanity Fair’ in 1848.
quote:
We have borrowed, for our mission statement, a phrase from the brilliant 1988 movie The Unbearable Lightness of Being, directed by Philip Kaufman and based on the novel of the same name by Milan Kundera, featuring Daniel Day Lewis, Juliette Binoche and Lena Olin. Sabina (Lena Olin) in restaurant with piped music:
“Everywhere music’s turning into noise. Look. These plastic flowers…they even put them in water! And look out there, those buildings – the uglification of the world. The only place we can find beauty is if its persecutors have overlooked it. It’s a planetary process…and I can’t stand it.”
