Magazines

ZAO is an independent art magazine founded in Scotland.

The name “ZAO” evokes both creation and construction. It refers not only to the making of work, but also to the building of contexts—spaces in which images, moving images, sound and text can encounter one another freely, collide and generate new ways of seeing and narrating.

We are drawn to artistic practices that are still unfolding, not yet fully named and continuing to search for languages of their own. With a particular focus on emerging artists and independent practitioners, ZAO seeks to establish an evolving cultural passage between East Asia and the United Kingdom, extending this dialogue into the wider international art landscape. Rather than defining the boundaries of artistic practice, we make space for experimentation, divergence and ideas that remain productively unresolved.
ZAO has been assigned an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) through the British Library and is formally recognised within the international system for identifying and managing serial publications. This provides a standardised foundation for cross-regional distribution, institutional collections, catalogue discovery and international circulation. It also allows every issue to become part of a cultural record—one that can be preserved, traced and rediscovered.
Within this international publishing framework, ZAO is committed to rigorous editorial practice, open-ended research and an evolving aesthetic vision. We see the magazine as more than a platform for presenting finished work. It is a shifting space shaped collectively by artists, researchers, editors and readers—a place where work can be encountered, questions can be raised and voices that have yet to travel far can continue to resonate.

Publishing Frequency

ZAO is published every two months.
Alongside our regular issues, we periodically invite guest editors from different cultural, academic and creative backgrounds to develop special editions around specific questions, artistic practices and exhibitions across different locations. These may take the form of artist-focused issues, group exhibition editions or thematic publications.
Each guest editor introduces a distinct line of enquiry. Drawing on their own research and curatorial practice, they reconsider the relationships between works and develop a particular language, structure and critical perspective for each edition.
Through this open and fluid editorial model, ZAO remains a space that can be continually rewritten. It has no fixed centre, yet it retains a sense of direction. It does not seek to offer a single answer, but to create the conditions in which meaningful exchanges between different places, media and lived experiences can take place.