Meet Pearl Slug | art book & zine studio/artist grop

We had the good fortune of connecting with Pearl Slug and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Pearl Slug, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
PearlSlug is a book studio that independently produces and distributes artist’s books and zines. PearlSlug studio began to take shape at the end of 2019 and was officially established on November 25 in 2020 after nearly a year of preparation.
At the beginning of its establishment, PearlSlug was inspired and encouraged by many friends and colleagues, and it has also experienced many struggles from reality. However, we always dream of making it a platform that provides inspiration and opportunities for young artists. The members are engaged in different forms of creation, and we all have a lot of enthusiasm for book and its production, which makes us believe that book is a medium of infinite possibilities and inclusiveness.
At first we don’t seriously see this as a business, it is more like a non-profit hobby for us. With our expansion, more and more people joined in, and we started to think about paying our volunteer translators and designers. It took us a long time to deal with complex financial problems, and we are still struggling with that. It’s never easy to earn money and pay your people as a small group, but at least all of us are doing it as a part-time job. We enjoy the process of making it more than getting paid for it.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Our members share the same experience of living and studying abroad, and are all inspired by the ideas of art books and zines a lot. We also find many Chinese artists have similar experiences and thoughts to us, we all want to bring the ideas of independent publishing art books to China. We spend a lot of time building connections with other Chinese artists who are also interested in making their own books, and also try to learn more about previous stories about art books and zines in China. It is an important aim for us to achieve localization and cosmopolitanism at the same time, so we try to focus on Chinese artists that are both based in China and overseas, and we also insist to translate all the contents into English and keep it updated.
It is not easy to do independent or self-publishing in China with all the restrictions and censorship, that’s the main challenge we are facing right now. In China, it is very expensive and difficult to have a legal ISBN (International Standard Book Number), the application for an ISBN is under a very strict review and charges at least 2000 usd to
buy it. Most of the self and independent publishing art books and zines in China don’t have ISBN, which means we are in an illegal grey zone of Chinese law. We just made a tough decision this year to temporarily closed our Chinese market and promotion because of the overwhelming censorship and strict publishing environment. It is another challenge for us to restart our business overseas now.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
For us, we spend most of our time in Shanghai and New York, we’d like to recommond our favorite art book shops in these two cities for people. Shanghai: Bananafish Book Store; Text & Image Art Books Store, Juan Zong Book Store as UCCA edge, Special Edition Project, Archipelago Books
New York: Printed Matter, Karma, Mast Books, Yu and Me Books, Usagi

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We want to shoutout for thought-provoking artists and artworks that encorage us to go further–the Indonesian contemporary art collective: ruangrupa; video game: disco elysium; the pioneer of artists book: printed matter.

Instagram: @pearlslugstudio

Image Credits
pearlslug