Brusselssprout is a digital publication that "aims to become an open, independent and alternative platform offering content related to the artistic and cultural world." They hope to champion underrepresented or otherwise noncommercial projects, exploring the new media landscape as a frontier for curatorial possibilities. Ignacio Gomez of the Brusselssprout editorial team was kind enough to share the history and future of their publication.

Core77: First off, what is Brusselssprout and how did it get started?

Ignacio Gomez: Initially developed in 2004 as a personal project by David Payton and myself, [Brusselssprout] re-launched in 2010 in its current format with the addition of Blanca Lopez, Mikko & Sasha Rosti, Hinrik Laxness, Cesar Bustos and Jordi Punzo. The magazine was founded as a mechanism to react to the perplexity of the situation of contemporary artistic production. The sense of post-2001 dislocation and bewilderment increased after the 2008 financial crisis. Does anyone really understand anything about the artistic production that is taking place today?

Just like the movement that encourages the self-generation of food in the city or self-sufficient systems of resource production, Brusselssprout is an initiative that involves cultural and artistic self-production to fills gaps (personal or collective) in whichever contemporary scene it latches onto, without any hesitance or complexes. This makes it a luxury for those of us who do it, as we aren't in any hurry, don't have an audience, we don't have a budget, we have no agenda or road map, no contacts, no sponsors and no need to explain everything we do...

Why did you choose to focus on Dubai for your first three issues?

Dubai in particular and the Middle East in general have certain characteristics that cannot (or could not) be found anywhere else in the world today and have possibly rarely been seen in history before. The concentration and speed, on a different scale of course, could only be compared with the construction of cities and civilizations in the west like ancient Rome back on History or the Manhattan of the early 20th century. It is still doubly ironic that this occurs in a city in the Middle East and an Arabic one at that.

We think the criticism that Dubai has received from the West has been at the very least frivolous, without taking time to look. We align ourselves with and share the same views expressed by Rem Koolhaas and some of his collaborators at Al Manakh I & II.

The first three issues of the magazine consist of a manifesto in chapters. We tend to use outdated or unused tools, so we thought of a manifesto. The manifesto itself is an outdated tool with a utopian twentieth century association that is completely obsolete in the twenty-first century. The three issues: "The Game is not over," "Renovating Dreamlands" and "Dubai Graphic Encyclopedia" make up a proposed manifesto. And they cover very specific issues: Who, How, What.

Why did you choose to do a collection—an encyclopedia—of vector images for seemingly every aspect of Dubai for this issue?

The first issue: "The Game is not over" is a journey through the public image of Dubai's power / engine...As we stated in the introductory text, the first issue of the magazine answered the question WHO. The second issue answers the question HOW... [with] explanations of many of Dubai's internal processes.

Therefore, in issue three we needed to deal with physical reality, the theme was WHAT. And of course this was possibly the most complex work, because everyone (like it or not) already has a well-established image of Dubai. Images spring to mind of palm trees on the sea, oil, excess, etc. in the pre-financial crisis and the abandoned cars, the workers in the post-crisis era. Explaining or introducing a WHAT was becoming a very difficult task. So we had to find a way of presenting Dubai in an "objective" way and for this reason the encyclopaedia was a more appropriate tool. In one of the unpublished texts we made reference to Darwin's travels and his illustrated travel books. We wanted to establish this parallel, and think of ourselves as explorers of a reality without interfering with it. That's why we chose the graphical encyclopaedia, as well as fulfilling the requirements of being a totally outdated tool in the post-Wikipedia age.

How much time has your magazine staff spent in Dubai? Are you looking in from outside the city or looking out from inside the city?

Actually most of the editorial team is currently based in Dubai, living and working there. Really the question you're proposing is quite relevant, because we work a lot with this idea of outside/inside. The current situation is quite contradictory on several levels. The view from within Dubai, on Dubai itself, barely exists and the view from the outside on Dubai is completely frivolous and distant. We looked around and found it impossible to understand how the city itself and everything around it has been excluded (almost) from the calendar of artistic production...Almost all current discussion of art seems to focus on the problem of identity, and in our opinion this has nothing to do with artistic production. Almost everything revolves around geographic, religious and cultural identity. The problem of identity is a consequence of the problem of the homogenization of production. No one can ask themselves who they are and be accepted by the rest. It's the others who ask who you are and if you try to answer—big mistake. Dubai, and by extension the Middle East, seems to be caught up in this dilemma.

How time intensive was it to create so many graphics?

We've actually spent more than a year on the production of this issue. Just as we launched the first chapter of the manifesto, we started working on the selection of items to document and process. But as we always say, and that's why we quote Pliny in this issue, the race isn't over. It's a continual work-in-progress. For example, since the launch we've added and updated three chapters and the work carries on. The idea is that each year we'll present an updated edition of the encyclopedia incorporating the changes that happened during that year.

Is there any single image in the issue that best embodies what, exactly, Dubai is all about?

The McDonalds symbol, but it's not so much about what Dubai is, rather what people think Dubai is not.

What can we expect in future issues of Brusselssprout?

We're already preparing issue four, which will be an issue without any images, only characters. I can't say any more because between now and when it's finished, we'll have changed it at least 5 times. With regard to the future, we're trying to start filming a documentary about the last builder of the Dhow (a traditional boat) in the Emirates and many more projects we're unable to make any progress with due to time constraints and sometimes budgetary ones.