BIG Kids Magazine is a creative arts magazine that features the work of kids and artists curated SIDE by SIDE.  It is a biannual publication of creative ideas and response-driven projects printed on draw-ready paper with a pull out artist print in each issue.

Born from the late night musings of two mother artists in response to the lack of creative children’s magazines in Australia. Artists Jo Politt and Lilly Blue first dived into the making of BIG Kids Magazine in September 2010 despite living on opposite sides of Australia and having not having seen each other for 12 years. They documented the journey and madness creative process from the outset with an exposing ‘making of a magazine’ blog, and by September 2011 BIG was available in all major Australian Art Galleries. Their 9yr old ‘senior’ editor, Luca and a BIG kids team of various ages and interests oversee all the BIG work.

BIG stands for Bravery, Imagination and Generosity and these are the underlying principles of the magazine. They showcase the work of children and artists side by side and invite children to participate in conversations that might otherwise seem elevated or out of reach. BIG have featured the work of some incredible artists across visual, conceptual and performative art forms and are always on the lookout for artists with a rigorous practice to participate in their ongoing Child Artist Response Project. They encourage kids (and grown-ups!) to make their mark, offer a perspective, develop an opinion, collaborate on an image, co-author a story and explore new ways of thinking and seeing the world. Where many children’s experiences are becoming screen based, BIG fosters an immediacy of response and make it possible for kids to draw, contribute and colour directly onto the pages in the moment. The magazine is designed to be personal to each child and importantly is able to be read under the bedcovers with a torch.

Recently, Politt and Blue also launched the Mother Artist Network (MAN), with Rachel Power, author of ‘The Divided Heart’, opening the conversation of the slippage between motherhood and art practice. It received an overwhelming response and now they just need the time to get the posts up.

Right now BIG are changing design hands and are very excited about the shift toward more readable chaos while they finalize Issue 3 –Game On! and prep for issue 4 – Into the Dark. The latest edition Treasure Maps is available now with Game on! available for pre-purchase and both feature an awesome array of kids and artists including Jacqui Stockdale, Stormie Mills, Ingrid Darbinger and Lea Redmond (World’s Smallest Postal Service).

The BIG info:
Editions 2 -Treasure Maps, and 3 – Game On! are currently available for online purchase here (We deliver worldwide) or see our stockists page
Keep up to date with BIG news on our BIG Facebook page

BIG are currently accepting submissions for their 4th edition Into the Dark. Deadline for contributions is 30 November 2012.
SEND your work via print quality jpeg images, 600 dpi scans, or Word documents. Download, fill in, save and send with the completed submission form to submit@bigkidsmagazine.com

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Find more zines we’ve featured here.