Peter Tyndall Zine

This Peter Tyndall zine for Buxton Contemporary takes inspiration from 1970’s graphic design trends to communicate the story of Tyndall’s mail art. The image on the cover refers to Tyndall’s digital collage-style blog, described as a ‘vacuuming up’ of various elements. This is essentially what Tyndall’s mail art and this zine are - emptying and playing with the contents of Tyndall’s vacuum. The zine is a celebration of the thousands of envelopes containing newspaper and magazine clippings relating to the interests Tyndall shared with his correspondents. Newspapers and magazines, as well as items of interest, litter the zine, along with text calligraphy representative of the deeply personal connections Tyndall built in the process of creating his works. The motif of connection between people, art, ideas, language and meaning is consistent throughout the spreads, as red lines combine with the gridded background to create an ‘endless web’ (also a nod to Peter’s signature rectangle lattice structure).

The zine’s development follows a similar transition to that of mail art as it moves from the analogue to digital space, a story that is told through a constant humorous lens. Just as Tyndall plays with framing as a device to create meaning, we are repeatedly positioned as an audience to “Tyndall’s audience” within the zine. A black and white palette allows red elements to sing despite depicting mundane objects, championing the idea that ‘art is everywhere and in everything.’