Ordinary magazine returns after a year hiatus with the theme of air

After one long year of silence, Ordinary magazine, the photographic ode to the everyday object, is back!

A publication birthed from the insane mind of the one and only Max Siedentopf and designed by Yuki Kappes, four times a year Ordinary picks up on an object you’ve got lying around your house — a bin bag, a sock, a cotton wool bud or a sponge — but puts in front of the world’s best and most experimental photographers. “The magazine takes a refreshing look at the mundane objects around us,” says Max. “Every issue revolves around one of these objects, which also comes as an extra inside the magazine. The object is sent to artists from around the world, to work their magic with it.”

Back after a 12-month hiatus, Max’s newest issue is based on the theme of air. As in the kind of thing that is impossible to visualise, but with artists like David Brandon Geeting, Daniel Stier and Putput tasked with the job, the air you thought you knew takes on a new guise. “Air is the general name for the mixture of gases that makes up the Earth’s atmosphere,” says the publication. “It has no colour or smell. Air is a mixture of about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, 0.9% argon, 0.04% carbon dioxide, and very small amounts of other gasses. There is an average of about 1% water vapour.”

Whether it’s Elmer Driessen’s interpretation of a cheesy puff floating through space, a water mist forming in the sky by duo Inka and Niclas or Maurico Alejo’s clear lava lamp like still life, each double page spread dedicated to the image encapsulates air into something visible.

Each cover of Ordinary is also dedicated to the physical object that inspires it, physically housed in a plastic bag stapled to a block-coloured cover. This time is no different despite the difficult physical entity air takes. “For issue six we decided to use a very special object, which of course also comes an extra inside the bag on the cover – Air.”