Optimundus accompanies Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys’s major exhibition at M HKA of the same title—the term they use for their particular conception of the parallel world. Narratives and criticism by Michael Van den Abeele, Nav Haq, Jennifer Krasinksi, Dieter Roelstraete, and artist Peter Wächtler are presented along with photos, drawings, and text illustrating the unsteady barriers and tense contact between Optimundus and the real world.

Edited by Mai Abu ElDahab. Following From Berkeley to Berkeley: Objectif Exhibitions, 2008–2010, this publication is the second in a two-part series of interviews with artists who exhibited at Objectif Exhibitions, Antwerp, between 2010 and 2011. The interviews are accompanied by a collection of secondary and parallel material produced in collaboration with each artist.

Interviews: Matias Faldbakken by Nikki Columbus, Will Holder by Richard Birkett, Sophie Nys by Dieter Roelstraete, Clifford Irving by Francis McKee, Patricia Esquivias by Jonas Žakaitis, Norma Jeane and Tim Etchells by Anna Colin, Michael Portnoy by Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, Hassan Khan by Brian Kuan Wood, Barbara Visser by Raimundas Malašauskas; and contributions by Mai Abu ElDahab and Dexter Sinister.

*Please note this publication is secondhand and has some traces of previous ownership (missing dust jacket, some damage).

This book is a three-part report on the long-term collaboration between artist Pope.L and curator Dieter Roelstraete which revolves around issues of connectedness, home, and migration, while addressing art’s relationship to knowledge.

Begun in spring 2016 with an invitation, extended to the artist by Roelstraete and his colleagues Monika Szewczyk and Adam Szymczyk, to participate in the fourteenth edition of documenta, Pope.L’s contribution took on the guise of an immersive, seemingly omnipresent sound installation titled Whispering Campaign, consisting of thousands of hours of whispered content—addressing nationhood and borders—broadcast throughout Athens and Kassel using both speakers and live “whisperers.”