El Paso Occupato

This little zine was published as soon as El Paso squat was established once for good (after more or less 20 temporary attempts in the previous months). It contains reports from the first two months of occupation, a collection of political statements and various xeroxes of photos, artworks, typewritings and handwrites – coherently to a punk fashion.

All of the content was edited by Superciano (whose potrait lays in the very last page of the zine) but was most probably the product of a collective and anonymous patchwork of thoughts, feels and screams that needed to find a container.

El Paso squat was first of all a meeting point for different souls that wanted to free the music, the visual arts and enhance the sociality in the suburb where the place was located – it contained different kind of non-institutional and self-managed activities (like cooking, playing music...) and a graphic design studio named Graffio, where this zine was produced.

On the cover, the typography and the quote suggests a link with the Wild West aesthetic: this has to do with a common joke about the district in which El Paso is located, that was considered an abandoned and desertic land of no one (at that time, Turin was over-industrialised and that zone was just about living a naked life between heavy work and drugs). In this context the relationship between El Paso and the neighborhood is estabilished, and grows more and more everyday: the squat was an alternative to the unhealthy life/work balance for the people, and both the place and the surroundings benefited of their own interactions.

The typography on the cover was most probably created by some of the graphic studio’s member, as some of them were graphic designers and letterists. The pages are in three different colours (ivory, light blue and orange), giving rhythm and musicality to the zine. The pocket format (7,4x10,5 cm)has been chosen due to economic motivations but also as an aestheic choice, reminding the holy cards. This little piece was mostly distributed in the neighborhood and/or to other akin squats around Italy: in the reports, there’s a mention to a strong link with the Indiano squat in Florence, among others. One hundred or a little more copies were printed.

The El Paso logo, in this case, is a rudimental one: it will be changed and restyled later, becoming the one that still represents the occupation nowadays.