Duda Magazine (also referred to as Chicago Dada, DoDa, doo da, do dah, and Duz) was a (loosely) tri-quarterly publication by Sara Ranchouse Publishing, a publishing project established in 1983 by artist Sally Alatalo, which ran from the late 1980s through the early 1990s. Originally intended to be a means through which Alatalo could experiment with the interplay of visual art and text in book form, Duda expanded to be a dynamic, collaborative project between the artist/editor/publisher and her many friends. The issues often featured appropriated text, found visual content, and collage, playfully tackling a variety of subjects, ranging from pulp fiction to cooking recipes, representation in commercial advertisements, feminist and aesthetic theory, and more.

Volume 2, Number 4 of Du Da is made up of several pages, each printed with the same image of a mummified doll bust, but cut at incrementally larger pieces, allowing the full image to be revealed on the final page. The back of each teases “Turn next page for instructions,” in larger and larger text–mirroring the increasing size of each page–until the final one, the back of which includes instructions on how to create a hat out of paper. With the playful sense of humor found throughout the various issues of Duda Magazine, this edition extends Alatalo’s exploration of image and text, in particular the ways in which the two can push and pull against one another.