Five snapshots from Agapornis magazine’s fifth issue
Agapornis is up there amongst our favourite pet magazines, and we love it for their devoted admiration for animals as companions. The editors set out to make a magazine that specifically highlights this unique bond, mixing pets with contemporary culture, art and fashion.
It’s a stunning publication filled with bold, off-kilter layout design, fantastic photography and refreshing narratives. Made in Barcelona, it’s printed in English with a Spanish translation supplement. Read on for five of our favourite stories from their fifth issue.
1. Putting on a show for pets
What is the language of animals? Do they enjoy art, like us? To answer these questions, Agapornis reports on Krõõt Juurak and Alex Bailey, a pair of performers who put on shows for people’s pets. Getting down on all fours, shaking their hips, and using sounds and costumes, they enchant dogs and cats alike. “The pets can barely take their eyes off them,” Jaime Arribase Leal writes, describing the way the pets share their toys with the performers, in a phenomenon that strangely makes a lot of sense — shouldn’t humans see things from their pets’ perspectives sometimes?
2. Gucci in two dimensions
Dressed in Gucci, the fashion editorial of this issue sees two parallel universes. On one page, the model is in the shot with a pet, and on the opposite page, their image is made into a collage of their spitting image.
3. The ultimate cat person
Dispelling the myth of the ‘cat lady’, Agapornis travels to California to visit the home of Lynea Lattanzio, a caretaker of over 700 cats. When she reached 96 cats, a point at which most would probably consider stopping, she became a surgical veterinary technician, and sold her Mercedes and her wedding ring to take care of the animals. Today, her house is the state’s largest no-cage, no-kill cat sanctuary and adoption centre.
4. A rabbit island in Japan
With a dark, lingering history, the abandoned island of Okunoshima is overrun with rabbits. The first generation of furry hoppers were brought over during World War II, as test subjects for chemical weapons that were produced on the island. When the war was over, the factory workers freed the rabbits, and today, people travel by ferry to visit its sandy terrain, which is now known to bring good luck and fertility to its visitors.
5. Ric O’Barry, dolphin trainer and activist
One of the strongest components of this magazine is the contributors’ undeniable admiration for animals, and an interview by a dolphin obsessive deserves a mention. She shares an intimate conversation with Ric O’Barry, the activist known for the documentary The Cove, while they bond over their mutual reverence for the aquatic mammal.
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