About this event

The first of a 3-day series of events presenting research on small press publications, raising questions for contemporary and future publication through returning to early histories of word and image.

10.00 a.m. GMT
Welcome address by Prof. Sharon Morris, Slade School of Fine Art, UCL and Prof. Clare Lees, Director of the Institute of English Studies, SAS.

Session 1: 10.05 am -12.00 pm: Small Press Artists' Books

Curated by Leila Kassir and Tansy Barton, Modern and Special Collections, Senate House Library and Clare Lees, SAS; chaired by Gustavo Grandal Montero

Theme: How the spineless format affects the relationship between creator and reader.

Speakers:
Sarah Bodman: Read To Me project, how we might interact with books through non-linear reading; appropriated texts from books repurposed as 3D artefacts; collaborative and participatory projects that explore books, reading and memory.

Karen Sandhu: (@k_ren_sandhu) A focus on artist Susan Hiller’s publication After the Freud Museum (London: Book Works, 2000) which began as an art installation at the Freud Museum, London. The concept of a ‘spineless’ artist’s book will be examined in the form of both archive and installation. Each section of Hiller’s installation can be viewed as a page from a book as it explores: narrative, text, image and visual spacing.

Gill Partington: Through an examination of some key examples, this talk considers the book-in-a-box as a material structure in the context of avant garde literary experimentation and the artists book. What is the relationship between a book's inside and outside? What happens when the order of the contents is not predetermined? What can boxes hold that the codex cannot?

Egidija Ciricaite: Egidija’s creative practice is based in the materiality of language. It often results in publications, typically produced on light ethereal papers and seldom having a pronounced spine. Focusing on her recent works, Egidija will look at the influences behind her works, at the concept of spine in relation to her work and why her spineless poetic wonders are books.

Session 2: 12:30-1:30pm : The Global Book

Co-curated and chaired by Dr Heather H. Yeung (University of Dundee): and Professor Tim Brennan Slade alumnus (Manchester School of Art).

Theme: Development of book production and circulation in relation to the history of globalization.

Speakers:
Prof. Tom Mole, Durham University
Prof. Ashleigh Harris, Uppsala University
Dr Patrick Hart, COPiM project, and National Library of Scotland.
Rebekka Kiesewetter, COPiM project, Coventry University

Lunch break 1.30-2.30pm

Session 3: 2.30-4.30 p.m. Materials, materiality and process

Co-curated and chaired by Prof. Sharon Morris and Lesley Sharpe, Slade School, and Liz Lawes, Art and Special Collections, UCL Library.

Theme: Material processes of making Egyptian ostraca, medieval manuscripts and contemporary printing.

Speakers:
Dr. Anna Garnett, UCL Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Ostraca, clay and writing materials. Links to related papers:

• Overview of ostraca in the Petrie Museum collection
• Overview of the 2017-18 ‘Papyrus for the People’ Project at the Petrie Museum
• Paper on the Coptic writing exercises in the Petrie Museum

Jo Volley Slade Pigment Timeline project with Dr Ruth Siddall, earth scientist

Sara Charles, SAS doctoral student, Materials and Making of medieval manuscripts
Tabitha Tuckett, UCL, rare collections, and Cynthia Johnston, IES, will look at Hebrew and Jewish mss. in SHL and UCL collections

Arnaud Desjardin, Artists’ Books and the Mouldy Modern