Bookfair Situation wondering about releases: NATURAL ENEMIES OF BOOKS, INDEX TEEN ADVISORY BOARD, COUNCIL, MOTTO, CODA PRESS, PONTON, MOUSSE PUBLICATIONS, COYOTE, NAP, STINE MARIE JACOBSEN
Friday 18 September 2020, 19:30
The culmination of Leaking Container’s Friday program takes shape through Index’ Bookfair Situation. With live readings and presentations the Bookfair collects publications from a selection of artists, publication studios, publishers, designers, printers and other cultural actors whose work involves thinking differently about how to distribute words on art, artistic and literary practices.
Together with Index, the following contributors have co-curated a selection of their publications which embody and manifest the investigations and questions around distributed printed material.
Natural Enemies of Books
The Natural Enemies of Books is a response to the groundbreaking 1937 publication Bookmaking on the Distaff Side, which brought together contributions by women printers, illustrators, authors, typographers and typesetters. It highlights the print industry’s inequalities and proposes a takeover of the history of the book. Edited by feminist graphic design collective MMS (Maryam Fanni, Matilda Flodmark and Sara Kaaman), Natural Enemies includes several new essays and poems by Kathleen Walkup, Ida Börjel, Jess Baines and Ulla Wikander. It also offers conversations with former typesetters Inger Humlesjö, Ingegärd Waaranperä, Gail Cartmail and Megan Dobney as well as reprints of the original book.
The Natural Enemies of Books is funded by the Swedish Arts Grants Committee and through an artist-in-residence period at Grafikens Hus, in collaboration with the Södertälje Konstnärskrets.
Stine Marie Jacobsen
Stine Marie Jacobsen is a conceptual artist working to decode violence and law both individually and collectively through participatory means. In order to give participants a collaborative and dialogical space, Jacobsen creates open structured sociocultural and participatory projects with clearly defined themes. With a focus on themes such as film, language, gender, violence, death, taboos, anonymity, psychology, the artist conducts performative experiments and creates platforms for critical thinking and new ways of looking at ethics, identity, control, fear and trust.
“I started making art books around 2012, because the book is like a mobile and portable museum for immaterial art – in my case such as people’s spoken statements, my playful grammar speech act sentences, and my interview, dialogue and educational methods.” – Stine Marie Jacobsen
For Leaking Container, a selection of Stine Marie Jacobsen’s recent publications will be presented at Index. These include Group Think (2020) – commissioned by Manifesta, the European Nomadic Biennial for its thirteenth edition in Marseille – Pidgin Tongue (2018) and German for Artists (2015).
Stine Marie Jacobsen lives and works in Copenhagen and Berlin, graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts with an MFA in 2009 and a BFA from CalArts, the California Institute of the Arts, Los Angeles, USA in 2007. Notable solo shows include at Nikolaj Contemporary Art Center, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2018, Flat Time House, London, England, 2018, Galerie Wedding, 2016, Berlin, Germany, Overgaden institute of contemporary art, 2015. Selected group shows include Manifesta Biennial 2020, Marseille, France, Momentum Biennale 2019, Moss, Norway, Riga Biennial, Latvia 2018, La Kunsthalle Mulhouse, 2017.
Publication Studio Rotterdam
Publication Studio Rotterdam is part of an international network of independent publishers known globally as Publication Studio. With 10 studios spread over 4 continents, they collaborate as a network to give local artists and writers access to an international platform. Instead of working with publishing ‘editions’ of books, Publication Studio shares an online catalogue and book server with over 300 original titles from which each studio can produce and distribute every title on-demand. It is in this way that PS combines a DIY book making practice with peer-to-peer sharing logistics made possible by digital exchange.
For Leaking Container, Yin Yin Wong of Publication Studio Rotterdam has co-curated a selection of publications: Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt: Introverse Arrangements, (Ed.) Isabelle Sully; Karen Brodine: Woman Sitting at the Machine, Thinking and Censorship, (Ed.) Isabelle Sully; Best Book Don’t Care or, Poor Form from Fringe Areas, Quinn Latimer, (Ed.) Werkplaats Typografie; How to Shoplift Books, David Horvitz; Publication Studio Portable: A Mobile Publishing Manual, Isabelle Sully, Elaine W. Ho, Beatrix Pang, Yin Yin Wong; Co-sensing with Radical Tenderness, Dani d’Emilia, Vanessa Andreotti.
Motto
Motto was initiated in 2007 by Alexis Zavialoff as a distribution company specializing in magazines and fanzines, a service which hardly existed before in Switzerland. The number of publications in the catalogue has continued to grow ever since, and it currently comprises more than 20000 titles. Motto distributes more than 150 publishers to more than 100 locations worldwide. After establishing collaborations with major international distributors, the interest in books and smaller self-published items came naturally and now constitutes a major part of Motto’s focus. A particularity of Motto is to offer the possibility of finding back issues of selected magazines, and also a wide selection of artists’ publications, including more experimental projects in sometimes very small print runs.
In 2008 Motto opened its first permanent bookstore in an old frame factory in a Kreuzberg courtyard in Berlin. The store was a natural progression from the traveling temporary bookshops that Motto has organized since 2007, first in Switzerland and then internationally. Motto Berlin regularly functions as a space for book and magazine presentations, as well as special evenings dedicated to different discussions around publishing about art, graphic design, photography, typography and related matters. The publications displayed complete an intense programme of exhibitions, screenings, talks and presentations.
For Leaking Container, Alexis Zavialoff has co-curated a selection of publications from Motto’s catalogue. These titles are: Square of Will in Square of Love – Texts, Notes, Drawings by Alina Popa, Florin Flueras (Ed.); Flexing Muscles, Ravikumar Kashi; Turning the Page, Kasper Andreasen; Canción de 22° 33’ N 91° 22’ O, Fermín Jiménez Landa; Treatise on the Veil, Nick Mauss; Éliane Radigue: Intermediary Spaces, Julia Eckhardt (Ed.).
Coda Press
Coda Press’ curatorial focus is centred around developing the work of artists working primarily with text as a central medium in their studio practice. Coda is dedicated to promoting art writing as a catalyst for critical discourse and knowledge production on an equal plane to one’s visual practice. The press aims to promote an argument towards art writing as being something different to academic musings, exploring metafictions and intertextuality, and seeks to highlight a growing medium that is still in its early stages of recognition within many artistic circles.
Scott Elliott – editor and founder of Coda Press – currently works at the Hordaland Kunstsenter where he coordinates the artist in residence programme. He is also a writer and curator. His first award winning artist novel, ‘The El Dorado Commission’ was released in Autumn of 2017 and is the recipient of the Scorpion and Felix Award from Publication Studio Vancouver. Elliott is the co-director of Weekend Server, a Bergen / Johannesburg based curatorial platform that creates alternative contexts for the circulation of art.
For Leaking Container, Scott Elliott has selected three publications from Coda Press: Black Lake Monologue by Kobie Nel, An Eating by Sophie Iremonger and Chants of Energy by Jonathan Aldenberg.
Index Teen Advisory Board
As Index core learning program, Index Teen Advisory Board is ultimately about the re-distribution of knowledge, and the re-distribution of power. For half a decade I.T.A.B has offered paid positions for eight young people (age 16-20) from across Stockholm and Uppsala to collectively reflect on and respond to the potentials of art and culture today. The group brings together young people with differing cultural backgrounds, languages and life experiences to discuss and implement ideas into the agenda of the organization.
During the Bookfair Situation of Leaking Container, Index Teen Advisory Board members: Yosra Ali, Leo Quieroz Gonzalez, Alva Mårsén, Leo Ramirez Iderström, Lovisa Johansson and Alfred Nilsson present a publication on: How to do things wrong a compilation of texts and thoughts about the common assumption that, placed before an artwork you have to say something smart…The group of 2019/2020 have been diving into the social construction of intellect, what knowledge is deeed good and how do we learn how to mimic and perform this smartness. Being an art imposter, playing with texts in Parrot School and Going to an exhibition on character have been ways to get closer to the moment when you’re placed infront of an artwork, and instead of saying something smart, you pull your tongue out.
Nordic Art Press (NAP) is a platform for distribution and mediation of Nordic Art Books.
NAP was initiated by Torpedo and Eller med a in 2017, and is funded by Arts Council Norway, Oslo kommune and Nordic Culture Point.
Torpedo Press
Founded in 2005, Torpedo Press is an independent publisher, bookshop and archive devoted to the promotion and production of artists’ publications, art theory and critical readers. Torpedo Press also hosts and produces exhibitions and other activities related to art publishing.
Since 2006, they have published around 40 titles ranging from fanzines and artists’ books to monographs and collections of theoretical essays.Torpedo is an independent project and is currently headed by Elin Maria Olaussen, Julie Leding and Karen Christine Tandberg.
Eller med a
Eller med a is a graphic design studio, founded in 2011 by Lotte Grønneberg, Karen Grønneberg and Marte Meling Enoksen, based in Oslo and Copenhagen. They work with producing, initiating and materializing projects within the fields of art, design and literature. Their main focus is on the book as a medium, and on the different aspects of a publishing process.
Ponton
Ponton is a printed culture journal for and by young people, founded in 1998. Anyone aged 14 to 21 is welcome to send poems, illustrations, photos, notes on their phones, series or other artistic material which can be printed on paper. Ponton’s editorial board receives, reads and discuss everything that is sent in, as well as selecting what is printed in the journal.
In summer 2020, the association for Ponton journal published the anthology “Jag vill göra något av det här” (I want to do something with this), edited by Martina Lowden, designed by Johan Olsson and illustrated by Bo Paulsen. The idea with the book was partly to show a selection of the literary text and the visual art which has been published in the journal throughout the year, partly to allow the different people who have worked with the journal explain their insights and experiences. Rather than a nostalgic memoir, we want to create an inspiring anthology about how to form and run a creative context for young people. The founders of the journal explain about Ponton’s birth and the first year, different editors depict our work processes and members of the editorial board give their perspective on the subject “to develop as a reading and writing person”.
As part of Leaking Container’s Bookfair Situation, a group of poets and writers from Ponton present poetic breaks – interstices in between presentations of distributed books and words.
Mousse Publishing
Mousse Publishing is an independent publishing house founded in 2006. Born as a spin-off of Mousse, the contemporary art magazine, Mousse Publishing makes books with artists, writers, public and private institutions, galleries, and other art and cultural initiatives. With a focus on artist monographs and artist books, Mousse Publishing also releases online contents, printed ephemera, and artist editions.
For Leaking Container, Mousse Publishing has distributed David Maroto’s The Artist’s Novel: The Novel as a Medium in the Visual Arts experiments with adopting two literary formats: the essay format and the artist’s novel. The publications, Part 1. A New Medium and Part 2. The Fantasy of the Novel (Mousse Publishing) will be available during the festival.
Council
Council is an art organization devoted to fostering better understanding of societal issues. Council was founded and registered as a nonprofit organization in France in 2013 by Grégory Castéra and Sandra Terdjman and is composed today of a team of 8. It is financially supported by foundations and cultural institutions.
Council develops a long-term artistic program by partnering with thinkers and makers from different fields of action and expertise. Council commissions artworks, curates exhibitions, designs assemblies, and orchestrates educational programs. Additionally, their fellowship AFIELD recognizes artists and cultural practitioners who develop social initiatives that benefit communities within and beyond the field of arts.