VOL.I

The inaugural issue of Gunk played a pivotal role in the platform’s mission, spotlighting both foundational and rising talents in the creative community in the UAE. This first volume celebrates individuals who were instrumental in establishing subcultures like skateboarding, fashion, and hip-hop in the region. It also features promising new creatives, highlighting their burgeoning talent and potential. Moreover, the volume is infused with a youthful spirit, encouraging creatives to take risks, be bold, and fully engage with their imaginative impulses. 

GUNK Volume 1 started in the least glamorous way possible. Neel Jassani was in her bedroom on her laptop, feeling fed up. At the time, she was deeply involved in fine art through painting and galleries, but it felt stiff, pretentious, and inaccessible, like work that needed to be explained rather than felt. Instead of continuing down that path, Neel did the opposite. With no end goal or pressure, she spent three days straight creating graphic design ideas, layouts, fake advertisements, and experimental pages that did not need to make sense together. Around sixty pages in, she realized she was having more fun than she had in years.

At first, the project was completely personal. Over the next few months, she refined it slowly without knowing what it would become. It was not a magazine yet, just a stack of pages and a feeling that something was there. One day, while working at Tashkeel, she asked a visitor to review the project honestly. After going through it page by page, he told her it was great but not relevant to anyone except her. That moment shifted everything and led Neel to begin interviewing people, opening GUNK into something larger than herself.