II MAGAZINE ISSUE # 1 – UNPUBLISHING AND PUBLISHING
Magazine Launch
Conversation with Tommaso Arnaldi, Micol Meghnagi, and Francesca Pionati, and presentation of A Confluence (the Mississippi and the East rivers) and VCBC: Edgelands, excerpts from the project Edgelands by Sean Vegezzi
#Agora

II Magazine is an annual publication that explores paradoxes and methodologies within publishing founded by the collective INIZIATIVE DI II, collective composed by Francesca Pionati, Dalia Maini, Tommaso Arnaldi, Nicolò Pellarin, Michael Anyoke Musa e Francesca Emilia Minà, and published by Paint It Black.
Building on the foundation of Issue #0– Performance and Publishing, II Magazine Issue #1—Unpublishing and Publishing seeks to unearth concealed, overlooked, and censored knowledge, questioning how the mainstream media side steps deeper power structures. What does the present obscure about our relationship with knowledge? How does our past shape what we know? II Magazine #1 is a partial archive of taboos and theories that investigates systemic forms of censorship and control, bringing together diverse contributions from artists, collectives, organizations, and researchers working to expose and challenge them.
On the occasion of the publication’s presentation, Tommaso Arnaldi and Francesca Pionati will engage in a conversation with Micol Meghnagi. Following this, two excerpts from Edgelands by Sean Vegezzi will be screened, a project the artist began in 2021 on the Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center (VCBC): A Confluence (the Mississippi and the East rivers) and VCBC: Edgelands.
The Vernon C. Bain Correctional Center (VCBC) is an 800-bed, 191-meter prison barge that has been moored in New York City’s East River for over 30 years. Located in an industrial zone of the South Bronx far from public transport. The majority of people imprisoned on the barge were awaiting trial. The film features intercepted radio communications between prison staff, which were recorded from March to May of 2021. They expose frequent fires, and an escalation in use of force and chemical agents such as pepper spray. The radio intercepts also include the near-daily use of “enhanced restraints,” which range from leg shackles, to having arms, legs, and chest strapped to a gurney, to spit hoods (plastic bags placed over detainees’ heads), and mitts to prevent the use of hands and fingers. Fifteen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, detainees were still housed and quarantined together in overcrowded 50-bed dormitories.

Issue #1 – Unpublishing and Publishing highlights intellectual and material resistance, offering a rich tapestry of experiences that questions the limits of traditional publishing. Unsettling rather than comforting, opaque but inviting deeper connection, it asks us to reimagine our present bonds. The contributors counter systemic censorship, appropriation, and repression—the currencies of today’s political landscape—and shine a light on the revolutionary potential of visual culture, hacking, community, social science fiction, somatic trauma healing, and forensic investigation, showing how methods and practices as such can transcend resistance, becoming a sociogenic force. Issue #1 features contributions from Prentis Hemphill, Francesca Pionati, Sean Vegezzi, Dalia Maini, Paul Sochacki, Sofia Albrigo, Cem A. aka @freeze_magazine, Greer Lankton, Tommaso Arnaldi, Trust, James Bantone, Captain Pro, Noura Tafeche, Enrico Floriddia, Airwars, and Nicolò Pellarin.
The event will take place in the auditorium.
Free entry until full capacity is reached.
The publication will be available at the bookshop.
MICOL MEGHNAGI is a researcher at the University of Bologna, where she focuses on the memory of the Shoah and the Nakba, as well as Italian colonialism. She contributes to various journals and newspapers in Italy and abroad.
SEAN VEGEZZI is an artist and researcher who has examined urban topographies and infrastructures through image-making, site-specific installation, sculpture, and writing. Vegezzi’s practice begins from lived experience and investigates civic life in relation to issues of autonomy, privacy, security, carcerality, and policing.