Eva Olthof’s book takes as it’s starting point the American Memorial Library in Berlin (Amerika-Gedenkbibliothek), which opened in 1954, and two books, which were returned after 50 years, accompanied by a handwritten personal letter. The library was a gift from the American people to the population of West Berlin after enduring the Berlin Blockade, promoting the “illimitable freedom of the human mind”, as it reads in a quote on the library’s wall from US President Thomas.

The book brings together the charged political history of this library, and the recent events connected to the revelations of NSA files by Edward Snowden.

Contributions by Doreen Mende, Eva Olthof, Eben Moglen

With texts by Federica Bueti, Malak Helmy, Francis Mckee, Haytham El Wardany, Brian Kuan Wood.

Five essays that take an intimate look at what language’s role is in moments of dramatic change, and how to find meaning for artistic practices in these transformative conditions. Taking its cue from the aftermath of the events of the Egyptian Revolution in 2011, Final Vocabulary doesn’t provide answers as much as it captures the spirit of the moment of searching in which the writers find themselves. The book was developed out of a live conversation at an event called “The Informal Meeting” that took place in Leuven in January 2015, where participants were asked: Our histories and references are often in a different language (abstract or actual) than we use ourselves, what tools do you think are or might be useful to help you trust your own memories and narratives? What, if anything, do you think we might borrow from art to experiment with language in different situations? In English and Arabic.

The concept of ’dilution’—bringing together healthy and mentally ill people to overcome the formation of a polarised and hierarchical society—was developed during the Nieuw Dennendal experiment at a Dutch mental healthcare institute in the 1970s.

With this book we broaden the scope of what dilution could mean today, viewed through various historical, artistic, sociological and philosophical lenses. Could the historical concept of dilution be deployed as a contemporary artistic principle and be rediscovered as a means to achieve peaceful cohabitation? Does it have the potential to bridge and unify radical forms of otherness as part of an artistic process or perhaps life in general?

This publication comes out of the artistic research for the video work Homestead of Dilution, and is the result of an artist-in residency by Domenico Mangano & Marieke van Rooy at Het Vijfde Seizoen (located on the grounds of the mental health institute Altrecht in Den Dolder, The Netherlands), from January to May 2015.

Designed by Bardhi Haliti.

Doug Ashford is a teacher, artist and writer. Ashford’s principle visual practice from 1982 to 1996 was the artists’ collaborative Group Material that produced over 40 exhibitions and public projects internationally. Group Material developed the exhibition form into an artistic medium using display design and curatorial juxtaposition as a critical location where audiences were invited to imagine democratic forms. Since 1996, Ashford has continued to make paintings, write, and produce museum and public projects. His book Who Cares (Creative Time, 2006) is a publication built from a series of conversations between Ashford and an assembly of other cultural practitioners on public expression, beauty, and ethics.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition Tradition at Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture, 16 March, 2013– 19 May, 2013 and Grazer Kunstverein, 7 June, 2013 –11 August, 2013.

Fehler lesen. Korrektur als Textproduktion is an essay on textual errors and a personal quest to find them. Misprints demonstrate the vulnerability of a text. Here we catch a glimpse of the pre- and post-production phases, work that is to a large extent invisible. Thus, the juxtapositions of words that are printed and those that are intended (errata) reveal far more than a simple genealogy of wrong vs. right: they document vestiges of the work done in the shadows, the wrestling with language. Displacements, reconstructions, and lacunae become visible. In her essay Tabea Nixdorff tracks the social, linguistic, media, and poetic dimensions produced by correction and textual criticism. Who does the correcting and what traces does this mostly invisible work leave behind? What shifts in meaning do mistakes trigger? To what extent does the medium play a part in authoring the text.

Unbidden Tongues publishes previously produced yet relatively uncirculated work by cultural practitioners busy with questions surrounding civility and civic life—particularly so in relation to language. The first title of the series, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt: Introverse Arrangements, is centred on the work of German artist Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt who, despite only recently garnering attention for her work, is most known for a period of geometric and poetic typewriter drawings produced between the 1970s and 1990 while employed as an administrator for the German Democratic Republic.

Three new limited edition prints of Ruth’s work will also be available on the night, thanks to her gallery ChertLüdde, Berlin, as well as a small exhibition of ephemera surrounding her practice.

The launch will also coincide with an event next door: Shimmer’s next sundowner opening, with the introduction of a sculpture by Ian Kiaer and work-on-paper by Marcel Duchamp to their the current exhibition Higher! Higher! Lower, Lower. Louder! Louder! Softer, Softer.