Photographer Begum Yetis and stylist Matt King follow up their 2018 exhibition Bare With Me with a zine of the same name, where each page becomes a poster to hang on your wall
In an increasingly digital culture, much of the content we create is ephemeral; it exists for a short time before disappearing, leaving nothing behind except a memory which fades with time. While we are no doubt adapting to this environment, many of us long for something more long-lived; a more permanent reminder of our experiences.
Enter photographer Begum Yetis and stylist Matt King (of SORT Zine), who have taken the images they produced for their 2018 exhibition Bare With Me and turned them into a zine of the same name. There was a strong sense of temporality to this show – Yetis and King invited everyone to take a picture home at the end of the night.
Now compiled in a publication, these images comprise strong, confident and honest portrayals of people in various degrees of undress – a socially acceptable, if not outright encouraged, practice that has grown in popularity with the rise of Instagram.
Drawing inspiration from 1970s bodybuilding magazines and punk and sex posters, Bare With Me straddles the divide between vintage erotica and contemporary style. Diverse in age, gender and race, subjects are celebrated in their natural state, left completely unretouched. Other photographs explore the predilections of our most intimate selves; how our undergarments reveal just as much about who we are as the clothes we wear on top.
Here, Yetis and King take the 70s pin-up style photography to its logical conclusion. “We wanted to make this in to a zine that would be a collection of posters rather than a coffee table book,” Yetis says, who notes that she personally bound each of the zines by hand. “Our art director Omer Agustoslu, added catchphrases like ‘Wild Wild’ and ‘Sexy Seductive’ which makes some of the pages into story headliners, like the layouts of erotica magazines,” Yetis continues. “We formatted the zine to encourage people to rip out the posters and put them up above their beds!”
Ready to be torn up and tacked to your bedroom wall, Bare With Me at its heart is all about self-acceptance; a reminder of the power of being comfortable in your own skin.
Bare With Me is available now, published by SORT.