Boîte Editions: The Boxed Art Magazine

Federica Boràgina and Giulia Brivio co-founded Boîte Editions, a non-profit cultural association established in 2009 that produces the boxed art magazine "Boîte." The magazine, which takes the form of a box containing printed materials on recycled paper, aims to make contemporary art accessible by offering selected resources and encouraging a slower, more deliberate engagement with art. The project was inspired by a chance meeting in Milan and a shared dissatisfaction with online art writing. The box format references Marcel Duchamp's "Boîte-en-valise" and his poetics of concealment, as well as Thierry de Duve's metaphor of the artwork as a tangled ball of yarn. Each issue focuses on a single thread or theme, such as techniques, documentation (boîte #17), or non-documentation (boîte #18). The editors see their work as curatorial, creating "exhibitions in a box" that prioritize clarity and accessibility over complexity. Boràgina, a PhD candidate in contemporary art history at the University of Turin, previously worked as assistant curator for Intesa Sanpaolo's 20th-century art collection. Brivio, a graduate of the University of the Sacred Heart, managed the Italian Artists Archive at Viafarini DOCVA and was project manager for Fiorucci Art Trust in London. The magazine is distributed through Artphilein Editions and the Choisi bookstore in Lugano.