Alex
Elena Narbutaitė
Published by Roma Publications, Amsterdam, 2017, 48 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 16 × 24 cm, English
Price: €18

Elena Narbutaitė enjoys the nature of discovery. By offering the unexpected, she hopes to create social situations in which the audience can collectively experience surprise or confusion. ‘Alex’ is a lamp, a light programme, and an exhibition by Narbutaitė that began during a 2016 New Year’s Eve party in her Vilnius apartment. After bringing in the new year, the lamp travelled to Kunstverein München, where it was installed above a window at the foyer entrance, pointed directly into the eyes of visitors. This book marks the year-long event using text excerpted from the film ‘Exotica’ by Atom Egoyan, as well as text interventions by Bernardo José de Souza and Chris Fitzpatrick.

Designed by Julie Peeters.

#2017 #chrisfitzpatrick #elenanarbutaite #juliepeeters #kunstvereinmunchen #romapublications
WT reader: The Summer Reader, Again, or A Diamond in the Rough
Published by Werkplaats Typografie, Arnhem, 2008, 256 pages (b/w ill.), 10.5 × 17.5 cm, English
Price: €12 (Temporarily out of stock)

Being at once a school and at the same time not a school, a workspace, the WT tends to want to comment on its own distinctive form of academic pursuit (by way of, amongst other outlets, these School Journals). And during this sometimes faltering, sometimes successful quest, I’ve often thought about Jacques Rancière’s Ignorant Schoolmaster. Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation, not least because it outlines an “intellectual adventure” whereby any hierarchy amongst the students and between them and their tutor dissolves.—Maxine Kopsa, ‘Editorial Considerations’ (excerpt)

Including the work of Guy de Cointet, Ian Hamilton Finlay, Scott Ponik, David Lieske, Stephen Willats, Na Kim, Morgan Fisher, Karl Nawrot, Boy Vereecken, Cecilia Costa, Joris Kritis, Julie Peeters.

#2008 #boyvereecken #davidlieske #guydecointet #ianhamiltonfinlay #joriskritis #juliepeeters #karlnawrot #maxinekopsa #scottponik #werkplaatstypografie
SSS: How to imitate the sound of the shore using two hands and a carpet
Cevdet Erek
Co-published by Sternberg Press, Berlin and Kayfa ta, 2017, 72 pages (b/w ill.), 9.6 × 14.8 cm, English
Price: €6 (Temporarily out of stock)

SSS: How to imitate the sound of the shore using two hands and a carpet is, at first glance, exactly what it claims to be: an in-depth manual for staging a private (or public) performance, in which one uses both hands and a carpet to imitate the sounds of water making contact with land. Istanbul-based artist Cevdet Erek’s book includes diagrams and photographs, which illustrate possible methods for producing this effect, while also addressing theoretical and methodological issues related to the representation of nature.

SSS is the second book in the Kayfa ta series, a publishing initiative of Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis. Each book in the series is a monographic essay commissioned in the style of how-to manuals that situation themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, and the factual and the fictional. Design by Julie Peeters

#2017 #alayounis #juliepeeters #kayfata #mahamaamoun #sternbergpress
How to spell the fight
Natascha Sadr Haghighian
Co-published by Sternberg Press, Berlin and Kayfa ta, 2018, 80 pages (b/w ill.), 9.6 × 14.8 cm, English
Price: €6

James R. Murphy, a math teacher in La Guardia, New York, regarded mathematics as the most powerful and manipulable abstract language available to humans. To acquaint students who don’t “like” math with abstract and systematical thinking, he put a piece of string in their hands and taught them to make string figures.

How to spell the fight follows a thread that has been running through our fingers from centuries past till the present day, morphing from the tangible string figures that join our hands in childhood to the more elusive computational algorithms that engage our fingers today. Following this line of inquiry through various twists and turns, a conversation about collective agency emerges with the aim of rethinking current paradigms of cognition, education, and power.

Natascha Sadr Haghighian is an artist living in Berlin. Her research-based practice encompasses a variety of forms and formats, among them video, performance, installations, text, and sound. She tries to learn how to make string figures.

This is the fifth book in the Kayfa ta series, a publishing initiative of Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis. Each book in the series is a monographic essay commissioned in the style of how-to manuals that situation themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, and the factual and the fictional.

#2018 #juliepeeters #kayfata #nataschasadrhaghighian #sternbergpress
How to Mend, Motherhood and Its Ghosts
Iman Mersal
Co-published by Sternberg Press, Berlin and Kayfa ta, 2018, 168 pages (b/w ill.), 9.6 × 14.8 cm, English
Price: €10 (Temporarily out of stock)

Iman Mersal intricately weaves a new narrative of motherhood, moving between interior and exterior scapes, diaries, readings, and photographic representations of motherhood to question old and current representations of motherhood and the related space of unconditional love, guilt, personal goals, and traditional expectations. What is hidden in narratives of motherhood in fictional and nonfictional texts as well as in photographs?

Iman Mersal is an Egyptian poet and associate professor of Arabic Literature and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada.

This is the fourth book in the Kayfa ta series, a publishing initiative of Maha Maamoun and Ala Younis. Each book in the series is a monographic essay commissioned in the style of how-to manuals that situation themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, and the factual and the fictional. Design by Julie Peeters.

#2018 #imanmersal #juliepeeters #kayfata #motherhood #sternbergpress
Bill 1
Julie Peeters (ed.)
Published by Roma Publications, Amsterdam, 2018, 176 pages (colour & b/w ill.), 23 × 31 cm, English
Price: €22 (Out of stock)

First issue of an annual magazine of photographic stories, edited and designed by Julie Peeters. Twelve contributors present new or previously unpublished work. BILL prioritizes visual reading without distraction, the images that appear in the magazine are printed without any accompanying text. Contributors to the first issue are: Jochen Lempert, Ketuta Alexi-Meskhishvili, Katja Mater, Elena Narbutaite, Rosalind Nashashibi & Vivian Suter, Arthur Ou, Scott Ponik, Adam Putnam, Johannes Schwartz, Algirdas Šeškus, Linda van Deursen, and Stand Up Comedy.

#2018 #adamputnam #bill #elenanarbutaite #jochenlempert #johannesschwartz #juliepeeters #katjamater #ketutaaleximeskhishvili #lindavandeursen #photography #romapublications #rosalindnashashibi #scottponik #viviansuter