We've spent many three-martini-lunches recently thinking about our internship programme. We spoke to a few people whom we really respect for what they’ve done. We cast our minds back to when we needed a little something to get our portfolio's started. We let it mull around in our hive-mind... and a little seed of an idea started to sprout.
Mercy originally started out as a zine (although they were called ‘MAGA’-zines back then) it was something do we could do with our mates, which was a laugh, but also gave us a chance to hone our skills and get our work out into people's hands and onto their table-tops. Great things came out of the zine, and you can bet your bottom dollar that there's someone at everything we do demanding that we return to the b&w photocopies days... (get over it punks! we've moved on!)
So, the plan is that we’re going to recruit a team of interns – designers, illustrators, photographers, producers, you name it, to produce a bi-monthly zine. Each zine will be guest curated by a promising student or graduate working in language. After that, you’re on your own – we want you take make all of the decisions, manage your time and your team, decide how it gets printed and distributed and who gets to hear about it.
We’ll provide you with a space to work and meet, cover your print costs and invite in creatives and thinkers whom we respect to run workshops and lectures designed to develop your skills.
The internship will run for four months (obviously we don’t expect you to work full time during this period), over which time you will have produced two zines. At the end of the fourth month, we will expect you to run a series of workshops for the next intern team, who will be starting their four month placement.
We want you to learn about working as part of a creative team, with people who haven’t trained in your creative discipline. We want you to run projects that make the most of your team’s capabilities, and we want you to have huge, spinny ideas with the potential to spiral off the page, completely out of control.
If you’re interested in the scheme, please send us a copy of your portfolio, or something that tells us a bit about you to our Liverpool office by April 15th.