About Baby Oyl

Baby Oyl is a serial publication about language, created by Sarah Taylor Silverwood. Each issue features a new edited selection of historical texts that engage with an aspect of popular culture that is particularly relevant today. 

I started Baby Oyl after buying a box of 1970s Playboy magazines from a rare books place in Chicago in 2014. They were packed with discussions about all this stuff that was seeping into the news at the time... abortion laws, equal pay and harassment in Hollywood. They informed lots of my thinking over the next few years, trickling through into different art works and projects. They were always there in the background.

People often have these sorts of things floating in the background and no-one ever sees them. Maybe they resurface when you are chatting with a friend or move house. Baby Oyl will commission a new guest editor for each issue who will use the publication to showcase their own hidden texts.

Find out about the beginnings of this publication (like why it's called Baby Oyl) by reading more about Issue 1 here.

Thanks to Rope Press for supporting the launch of Issue 1 of Baby Oyl with the Open Publishing Fund. x