I have recently become more and more interested in publishing and layout design along side my travelling and exploration work and after creating a zine for my trip to Japan in October last year and so decided I would continue to develop this side of my work with this Budapest zine.
I used "Lulu" again for this publication and the zine is available from this link
Remnants Of Memory, Nicola Hilditch-Short on Lulu
When I travel I collect a lot of things: tickets, leaflets, receipts, things I find lying around, I collect photographs, memories and snippets of information. I wanted to bring all that together in a way which represented the sometimes chaotic way in which we experience and process all that new information. How arriving in a new country can give you this amazing sense of being lost in the middle of a place completely alien to you, representing that discovery, exploration and awe.
I wanted this publication to be much more informative than the last one I did for Japan. I wanted to bring together some of the work I did on my blog with my zine work and produce something which was moving more into the direction of what I could see myself doing after my MA.
Creating something which is both a representation of a very personal account of a trip but at the same time reflects the facts and history I picked up and learnt about along the way to provide something which is what I would call a personal guide to Budapest. To create something with a scrapbook like feel but yet also a refined and professionally published document, something informative and yet intuitive and interpretative.
One of the things I have been considering within my practice is the idea of an "Authentic" experience of a place or even your city. One in which you make your own journey through that place and how this links to the idea of travel and tourism, consumerism and control.
Of using your own intelligence and individuality to navigate and experience a place, to really try to see more than one side to a city when travelling, to get below the surface and see the real life culture of a place instead of being cooped up in an all inclusive resort and never really seeing the country you claim to have visited. For that sense of being lost to be one of exhilaration and not fear.
The difference between being shielded and "protected" from the culture and the people outside the complex walls and embracing and celebrating this new world. Of paying thousands of pounds to travel great distances across the globe to still be surrounded by English culture, food and comforts or throwing a backpack over your shoulders and embracing the different cultures the world both near and far has to offer.
This zine is to celebrate reality, the effort and the thought that goes into truly discovering a place. This zine isn't about giving you everything that Budapest is, it is about showing you the fragments which make an experience. It is about a giving and yet also a holding back of information, a teaser for your own visit! To encourage you to notice the details all around you and to set off into the world without fear or the need for your hand to be held by a tour operator!
I have felt more recently and after a tutorial at University that these publications are something I would love to continue to do and develop into a career, one in which I would be able to work whilst travelling and possibly produce commissioned books for other people as a memento to their trips too.
If you would like to read more about my trip to Budapest and see my personal guide to the city the link to that post is here: BUDAPEST, Hungary. April 2014. Report and Guide.
If you would like to see more of my book/ zine and purchase the full 52 page publication for £10.00 then have a look on Lulu here: Remants Of Memory. Nicola Hilditch-Short
