Gordian Projects

We are very proud to have been accepted to exhibit at the 2015 Small Publishers’ Fair at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL on Friday 6th & Saturday 7th November. Small Publishers is an annual celebration of books by contemporary artists, writers, composers, book designers, and their publishers. The Fair is independent, self-funding and not-for-profit. This year over 60 participants will include: Ambeck Design (Denmark), AMBruno (London), Black and Blue (Manchester), Boekie Woekie (Amsterdam), Coracle (Ireland), Corbel Stone Press (Cumbria), Equus Press (Czech Republic), Gordian Projects (Sheffield), Grafikverkstan Godsmagasinet (Sweden), Impact Press (Bristol), Litteraria Pragensia (Czech Republic) Longbarrow Press (Sheffield), Mark Pawson / Disinfotainment (London), New Arcadian Press (Leeds), The Saison Poetry Library (London), Tom Paine Printing Press (East Sussex), Uniformbooks (Devon), Writing Maps (London), Yasushi Cho / Laughter (Tokyo)
For the complete list click here.

This year’s featured exhibition at the fair is: NANCY CAMPBELL: BOOKS AND PRINTED MATTER. Nancy Campbell is a British artist and writer whose work explores polar and marine environments. In 2010 she was Artist in Residence at the most northerly museum in the world, on the remote island of Upernavik in Greenland.

This year’s programme of talks and readings, running across both days of the fair is curated by writer and librarian Pascal O’Loughlin. We are delighted that Emma Bolland will be reading from a selection of our publications, including her own art-writing text LECTOLALIA, the PLACE AND MEMORY book, and our new editions which we are launching at the Fair, EAST WIND from Brian Lewis, (an excerpt of which is featured on this month’s Caught By The River), and the first of the long awaited MilkyWayYouWillHearMeCall pamphlets. You can see Emma reading from her texts and screening their related films at a recent performance at BALTIC in the window below.

For a limited period only we are offering Lectolalia (usual price £10 + £1.25 UK pp) and Place&Memory (usual price £5 + UK pp) together for just £12 + £1.50 UK pp: a saving of £4.00. This offer ends Sunday 10th August

UK orders (£12 + £1.50 postage)

Europe orders (£12 + £3.75 postage)

Rest of World orders (£12 + £5 postage)

LECTOLALIA (a romance), an experiment in art-writing that responds to the material sensuality of texts, along with an accompanying short film of the same name, was created by Emma Bolland for the Leeds College of Art & Design ‘Library Interventions’ residencies, and has recently been performed by Bolland as part of a screening/reading at Artists Book Market at the Baltic in Gateshead. You can view the performance here.

 

This bespoke, signed, and hand-numbered first edition of 150 copies is published by Gordian Projects in association with Leeds College of Art & Design. Typeset in Perpetua and Perpetua Titling, and printed on pearl grey paper, the edition is hand-stitched, and issued with hand-printed covers and contrasting dust jackets created by the author in multiple colour combinations.

Place & Memory is the culmination of a year-long psychogeographcal collaboration by artists and writers Amanda Burton, Donna Coleman, Sarah Deakin, Charys Ellmer, Sandy Holden, Lorna Johnstone, Morticia and Nigel Stone. A handsome 64-page paperback, designed to reflect the spirit of collaboration and discovery that developed during the artists’ journey, Place & Memory is a text and image exploration of a city and its emotions. “This transient sense of journey within environment is beautifully resolved through word and image. Word has been used as narrative, document, question and aesthetic. Each artist has constructed a world in which the viewer is being asked to enter and explore an anatomy of a different part of the city, offering an invitation to listen to the rhythms being played.” Dominique Cameron

How do we experience place for ourselves? What does it mean to us? Do our own memories become part of the collective consciousness accreted in the layers of storytelling laid down in a city’s foundations?

These are some of the questions posed by the group of eight artists brought together by four mentors to explore various locations in Leeds. Through individual and collaborative research and methodologies, a body of work has emerged that seeks to find new ways of interpreting the notions of place and self.

The artists have produced work ranging from the documentary and the poetic to personal stories and memories of place. The resultant book, Place & Memory, feels like an archive, a repository for self analysis, not just the observed. This is no visitors guide book to Leeds, and yet, never having been to Leeds I have an imprint in my head of these personal reflections which might act as a map. The artists have given me their own guide to this complicated and fragile space.

This transient sense of journey within environment is beautifully resolved through word and image. Word has been used as narrative, document, question and aesthetic. Each artist has constructed a world in which the viewer is being asked to enter and explore an anatomy of a different part of the city, offering an invitation to listen to the rhythms being played.

The imagery likewise leaves one with a sense of the sounds of place too. The photographs and film/video stills hover within the space between fact and fiction, that blurring of worlds where the edge to things can be found, a place where one can hear the chord structure. This is a place where the remembered is a record of those that have gone before, including ourselves and a thoughtful notation to describe who we might be now.

I feel honoured as always to be allowed access to people’s stories. By sharing our stories we allow for new provocations, alternative paradigms to exist. As the artist and writer Suzanne Lacy says in her book Leaving Art: “…getting people to talk with each other, and as a result think or act differently, is a critical role for artists…” The stories shared here are never slight. They all share that willingness to engage with a discourse of transformation. As one of the artist writes: “I explored my place, only to find it was no longer the same. Then I realised it didn’t matter – I was changing what this area means to me.” I think it is this idea of change that underpins the project for me. That through looking at place we can find new ways of talking about ourselves and our experiences, and the sharing of these narratives broadens all our lives in ways to suggest we are not alone.

Dominique Cameron is an artist and writer based in Dundee; click here to visit her website.

The Place & Memory book is still available at just £5 (inc P&P). To purchase a copy, click on the relevant PayPal button below:

UK orders (£5 + £1.25 postage)

Europe orders (£5 + £3.75 postage)

Rest of World orders (£5 + £5 postage)

Gordian Projects will soon publish their first book, Place & Memory.

More details to be added soon!