Capacity does not explain but cultivates a September garden: We Are Publication

Jonathan Allen (Artist), Rachel Cattle (Artist), Jenna Collins (Artist), Volker Eichelmann (Artist), John Hughes (Artist), Christian Newby (Artist), Andrea Stokes (Artist), Bill Balaskas (Artist), Sarah Bennett (Artist), Antonia Ulrich (Artist), Ingo Voigt (Artist), Jarrett Erasmus (Artist), Simone Heymans (Artist), Maureen de Jaeger (Artist), Raphaela Linders (Artist), Paulina Michnowska (Artist), Hodan Omar Elmi (Artist), Nadia Swaby (Artist), Mónica Rivas Velásquez (Artist), Mark Aerial Waller (Artist)Mathew de Kersaint Giraudeau (Designer)

Research output: Non-textual formArtefact

Abstract

Modes of collage have been a central preoccupation for the artists group We Are Publication (WAP). In 2020, its participants set out to cultivate an artwork ‘grown’ from several discreet constituents. To that end, WAP drew on contemporary American poet Rosemarie Waldrop’s recent appellation ‘gap gardening’ to suggest that the placement of words (and plants) generates intermedial zones of transformation and potential. Initially, visual and textual ‘seedlings’ were ‘planted’ in the form of a custom-produced newspaper sent to WAP’s participants during a period of national lockdown. Repeated physical engagement with this newsprint composite gave rise to the ‘September Garden’, a nascent domain that, in its first season, took the form of ‘plots’ comprising collages and textual assemblages. This productive terrain was then replanted, cut back, and otherwise tended to, before being presented online in its second season as the moving-image work Placement does not explain, but cultivates a September garden. For the Whitstable Biennale 2022, WAP’s experiment in jointly conducted research / speculative publishing returns to its newsprint origins as a new paper edition for distribution at horticultural locations around Whitstable, enfolding contributions from the core members of WAP and our extended network.
Original languageEnglish
Media of outputPrint on paper
Size30cm x 38cm (24 pages)
Publication statusPublished - 11 Jun 2022

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