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Ennui
Ennui was an out-sized, black-and-white newsprint magazine that appeared seven times between 1980 and 1981. Each issue was between 16 and 24 pages, and featured articles, photographs and advertisements that both reflected and contributed to the consolidation of the local art, music and fashion scene.
Like the drag balls, Ennui began as a conversation – in this instance, a discussion between Carol Hackett, Mary Janeway and Charles Rea at Kenneth Fletcher's wake. The first issue came out in the fall, with Charles and Mary doing much of the production and design work, while Carol focused on writing and editing.
Apart from the magazine's function as both an information source and a commercial enterprise, it exists today as a record of a little known time. While true that the years correspond to the emergence of punk rock, there were other activities going on in the city, some of which exist through reportage, others through advertising.
One advertisement (or infomercial) was for a Mainstreeters project called Support Modelling, an agency made up of group members and those they met from the city's west side and its downtown demimonde. The Gina Show's Gina Daniels was a "support" model, as was actor/musician Mark Oliver. Support Modelling, like Ennui, blended the interests of fashion and art together in an exploration of image culture that was to take root throughout the 1980s.
Another advertiser was Fernando Antunes, whose ads for Fernando Design could be found on Ennui's back cover. Fernando, who grew up in Toronto before moving to Vancouver's West End, was an important influence on the Mainstreeters, someone whom Annastacia McDonald and Brad Gough connected with as a collaborator in event co-ordination. Fernando was among the first Vancouverites to succumb to AIDS.
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