Edicola 518 in Perugia

Atlas of Beauty /

EventMaterial CultureReading, Territorial Development

The temple of paper. Edicola 518 is a place entirely dedicated to the sale, development and storytelling of the Italian and international independent publishing world. In particular, they disseminate independent magazines (mostly international, but also some Italian excellence), artists' books, fanzines, self-productions, art books. In addition to selling them, they tell their stories, make them known and promote their development. In the warm months, meetings are organised in the public space, where books become an opportunity to address issues of common interest.

Edicola 518 is not an art project, like Radetzky in Milan, it is to all intents and purposes a newsstand. It is formally so, in the sense that it operates with a newsagents' licence; it is physically so, because the kiosk that houses it is a newsagent's that has existed since the beginning of the 20th century. Finally, it deals in printed paper, mostly periodicals. This is the most interesting point of the project: they have decided to creatively operate in a traditional commercial sector with criteria of ambiguity and paradox.

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