Courtesy of Search Party Magazine
Tara C. Mahadevan—freelance writer, journalist, and self-proclaimed “champion of music discovery”—has always wanted to make a magazine.
As a young writer with a passion for the arts, Mahadevan made zines and contributed to online blogs such as Stereo Assault, Made Monarchs, and Eleven Music Magazine. Those experiences were crucial in shaping her engagement with the St. Louis music and arts scene, with which she is now intimately familiar. Having lived in New York and Chicago, she has witnessed first-hand the kind of resources and media support artists there have access to. That exposure gave her insight into what artists need, as well as fueled her ambition to bring the same thing to St. Louis: a platform for new voices, specifically those from underrepresented and marginalized groups.
Search Party Magazine is an annual print and digital publication “for & by St. Louis,” founded by Mahadevan with a Futures Fund grant from The Luminary. The magazine lives at the intersection between music, culture, lifestyle, and visual arts—genres that are traditionally separated into “high-brow” and “low-brow” art. Featuring essays, interviews, photography, illustrations, and playlists and video art in the form of QR codes, the magazine takes an interdisciplinary approach to the arts, thereby fusing boundaries between mediums and collapsing traditional artistic hierarchies.
The inaugural issue drops November 12, with a launch party at Profield Reserve. The print issue will be available for pre-order November 11 on searchpartystl.com.
As part of its mission to uplift marginalized voices, the magazine exclusively features Black and POC artists in St. Louis—friends whose work Mahadevan respects and admires. The inaugural issue includes an interview with musician Mvstermind, a fashion editorial by Bino, and a playlist covering "the many different sounds of Black music" curated by Police State, among others. All content is written, produced, and edited by a team of diverse creatives: Mahadevan, editor-in-chief, is a writer; Ryan Brown (Big Esco), creative director, is a photographer, rapper, and designer; Stephon White (Phonzz), designer, is also a rapper. “When you have artists spearheading an endeavor like this, the vision is different,” Mahadevan says. Being artists themselves, the team behind Search Party is deeply immersed in the communities it spotlights. The result is a publication that centers not only individual artistic talents but also community building and support.
“I don’t think any of my work would be possible without my community,” Mahadevan reflects. “Those are the people who lift you up and lift up your work.” Search Party Magazine as a collaborative and artist-centered project underscores the value of peer feedback in the artistic process. “[It’s] my way of uplifting communities,” Mahadevan says, “to create more resources for artists or more space for them to be heard.” The magazine is Mahadevan’s way of giving back—her gift to the city and the people who lifted her up.
