Arts co-editor Ruth Waters met Matt Lloyd, Brixton resident and one half of the editorial team for Curiocity – a miniature map magazine hybrid.
When Matt pulls out a yellow notepad no larger than the palm of his hand from his pocket (complete with small, teeth-ravaged pencil) I am not surprised. The history of London could be squeezed onto its tiny pages if the folded and condensed format of Curiocity is anything to go by.
Matt and his partner in publishing Henry Eliot have been producing Curiocity, a miniature map cum magazine for the past three years. On it’s miniscule pages the duo, along with a dedicated team of contributors, cram anecdotes and clues about aspects of London.
But why did they decide to start writing Curiocity? “Henry and I were bemoaning the death of the Big Smoke section of Time Out…It was like they had axed the most weird and interesting part of their magazine and we felt like there was a gap in the London gap market for something that was exploring unusual ways of experiencing London, making the familiar unfamiliar and discovering hidden stories.”
As the two thought more about producing a piece a print they came to the logical conclusion that they may as well “produce something that was as weird – and memorable – as possible.”
It’s like we’re giving half of a story and by going there, you’ll discover the other half.
“We try to keep the magazine reader-focused and pack in as many unusual journeys and experiences in London as possible…It’s always about what could you do in this place. A lot of the time the pieces become almost like clues. It’s like we’re giving half of a story and by going there, you’ll discover the other half.”
“Initially we had no idea that this would become something we could sell. We made 100 copies of the first one by hand, just for friends and family. We had a lot of positive feed back and decided to get it printed properly (no more gluing it together at the kitchen table!) and see where it went”. The print run is now 4000.
Curiocity doesn’t just favour the weird and obscure, it also favors the free and affordable. I ask Matt what the thinking is behind this: “I feel like the world is such that if you chuck money at things you can do all sorts of exciting stuff, but [only including free or very inexpensive activities] is a useful constraint.”
Although the magazines crosses the length and breadth of London, Brixton’s attractions feature more than most. Matt has lived in Brixton for five years. “It’s hard not making it into a secret autobiography of a portrait of our lives in London…At the moment we work with an artist to draw the map and working out a different way of mapping London and the theme usually grows out of there.”
“As a Brixton inhabitant and as a lover of Brixton making this London-wide magazine… in a funny way I’m making a secret portrait of Brixton…I always hope that for other people who love the place my passion for this particular part of London will coming through.” In fact by the time Matt and Henry will consider their mission complete and exhausted all possible maps of London, “there will be this immaculate pen portrait of Brixton buried in the heart of the magazine.”
It was written with love and it’s nice to have a little requiem to [Speedy Noodle] and its vegetables in black bean sauce.
Brixton’s infamous Speedy Noodle, now Fox-Yuppies-Out-tons, gets a mention in the edition of Curiocity out earlier this year (“I’m grieving it. It wasn’t obviously lovable, but if you went there often enough it could become so.”): “I’m glad we got it in there just in time before it closed. It was written with love and it’s nice to have a little requiem to it and its vegetables in black bean sauce.”
Brixi stone, Brixton’s murals, Rosa the dog of Book Mongers, Roof Dog of The Windmill, Franco Manca and Phoenix Cafe have all made appearances in the magazine, and Matt tells me that “one way or another, we try to make sure a Brixton story creeps into every edition”
Looking ahead, Matt is keen to feature Nour Cash and Carry – “it’s such a tardis!”- the Dumplings from Atlantic Bakery must get a mention and also Sam the bike repairs man on Railton Road.
With a new edition coming out every 4-5 months, what’s next for the Curiocity team? It sounds like a never ending task. Matt describes how in trying to create an alternative A to Z of London they’ve started a task which is going to take “twelve to fifteen years. It’s going to take us so long to do that things will close or disappear in the time we’re still writing. It will become like an archaeological dig going back through them.”
For their next edition Matt and Henry are working with the National Trust, doing a pre-Raphaelite trip across South London to William Morris’s Red House.
You can buy a copy of the current edition of Curiocity through their website, or at Foyles, Stanfords, Daunt Books, Roughtrade East, the British Library, the Wellcome Collection and at the ICA. They are currently looking for a shop to stock their map magazine in Brixton…
