Inspired, Bigna Pfenniger, the Drawbridge

When people tell you that time is of the essence, they usually mean they’d appreciate it if you pressed on with things, or, for that matter, stopped banging on about details. Which is a good call. Just that it doesn’t inspire many a careful thought or laugh.

The Drawbridge is a quarterly broadsheet of ideas gathered around a certain theme. It is big, features no current news, but subscribes to topical timeliness. You might call it a luxury. Putting it together at a three-monthly pace with a group of brilliant, inventive and generous people certainly is.

The time frame allows us to inspire contributors rather than prescribe content. The formula invites concise, precise, wayward and oblique takes on the theme. Images and text stand in no hierarchical order. At best, they do not illustrate, but subtly feed off each other. In that sense, making it work is an immense pleasure.

Inspiration, though, does ask for urgency. At times such urgency is frivolously minimal, at others looming large. Without being categorical or po-faced about matters, there might be more value in a platform that exudes time for thought and humour than first meets the eye. At least I’d like to believe so.