liquid memories
~to read with water
" liquid memories ~to read with water" is a collective photobook
available in two versions:
[ 1 ] a free downloadable opensource edition [ here ] and
[ 2 ] a collector's edition featuring the 55 sections in an individually customised case [ below ]
PRINTED EDITION
liquid memories ~to read with water (2022) is a collective photobook work,
an assemblage of experimental photo-texts that respond to the challenge
of photographing/remembering with water.
A publication in 55 unbound sections
Laser and Indigo print, edition of 100 copies
Total: 721 pages, 544 photographs
Project and Editorial design: paula roush
Photographs and words : Maria João Ferreira, paula roush, Betina Dal Molin Juglair, Francisco Varela, Miguel Marecos, Joana Nascimento, David Goldenberg, Raul Simões Pinto, NDMALO archive, Alice WR, Teresa Huertas, Carla Fragata, Manuela Matos Monteiro, Luís Carvalhal, Natércia Caneira, João de Goes, Inês R. Amado, Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro, Ana Botelho, Manuela Vaz, Renato Roque, Eliane Velozo and Severino Iaba, Susana Paiva, Mide Plácido
BILINGUAL : Portuguese, English
CONTENTS: 55 loose sections– 18 pamphlets, 5 paperbacks, 12 posters,
10 cards, 9 photographs, and 1 leaflet
PRINTING: Laser and Indigo printing on uncoated papers
and silk finish paper on facsimile photographs
SIZE : 23 x 35 cm – closed enclosure
[individual sections range in size from 10.5 x14.8 cm to 42x 59.4 cm]
COVER: Soft cover in clear PVC with 2 side-sealed pockets
and unique acrylic gold monoprint
For each book, the assemblage of the 55 sections is different
and each cover is individually customised with a gold acrylic monoprint
WEIGHT: 2kg 100 g
RELEASE DATE: May 12 2022
PUBLISHED BY: msdm publications
The printed book is available at msdm Shop [online],
and at the Atelier POPUP and STET, both in Lisbon.
CONTENTS
"WATER STATIONS"
Maria João Ferreira
CAPTURE
paperback
pages: 84
photographs: 58
size: 14.8 x 10.5 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated
black & white
perfect binding
cover: 250gsm silk paper, colour
Paperback, 14.8 x 10.5 cm, 84 pages, experiments with images by photographer Marques de Abreu 1909 study ‘Contribution to Hygiene in Porto’. Scannography (or scanner photography, the process of capturing digitized images of prints) in which historical photographs are altered through a deviation in the scanning procedure, a movement of folding, juxtaposing, and dragging prints of the source images across the flatbed photo scanner with a CCD array capturing device creating waves along its path. The cover, printed in colour, shows process and work environment.
paula roush
ORGANIC WATERS
1 pamphlet
pages: 16
photographs: 8
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated, colour,
saddle stitched
1 pamphlet
pages: 24
photographs: 11
size: 21 x 21 cm,
paper: 90 gsm uncoated, colour,
saddle stitched
1 pamphlet
pages: 24
photographs: 24
size: 29.7 x 10.5 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated, colour
saddle stitched.
1 pamphlet
pages: 8
photographs: 8
size: 29.7 x 10.5 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated, colour
saddle stitched.
Two pamphlets created through water contact printing, with seaweed, ink and brushes, as in ancient suminagashi ‘ink floating’ technique. CHAOTIC GEOMETRY OF WATER, 16 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm, photographs sourced from Pasteleira 1950-90s Facebook group, folded into tetrahedrons (three-dimensional shapes with triangular faces), render visible continuous spiraling of liquid motion.
VORTICE PATTERNS OF WATER, 12 pages, 21 x 21 cm, photographs from Periódico Encontro (Meeting Newsletter) published by the Parish of Nossa Senhora da Ajuda, Pasteleira, Around the folded edges, as additional tension coalesces, diffraction patterns create geometric, interlacing organic-like surfaces, connecting to both sacred water geometry and quantum molecular structure.
Two long pamphlets, LIQUID WORDS, 29.7 x 10.5 cm, 24 and 8 pages each, assemble liquid words elicited from workshop participants, following a wateryquery guided exercise.
Betina Dal Molin Juglair
SUSPENDED WATERS
1 pamphlet
pages: 24
photographs: 22
size: 21 x 14.8 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated, black & white
saddle stitched
1 poster
size: 29.7 x 42 cm
photographs: 4
paper: 90 gsm uncoated, colour
A 24-page pamphlet, 21 x 14.8 cm, printed b&w, showcases photo-text collages developed with photographs of broken umbrellas, found in streets of Porto. Traces of extreme weather events, felt by a diasporic dweller recently moved to the city, are embodied in these objects, shields meant to protect from the swirl of windy rainy days. Cut-ups from historical essays on urban waters and unsteady communities, include the 1909 study Contribution to Hygiene in Porto and the 1994 essay Time and Community: The Lost Nexus, a reflection on the Pasteleira community. A related poster, LIQUID POEMS, 29.7 x 42 cm, adds inter-textuallity to metereological feelings.
Francisco Varela
PURE MUD
1 pamphlet
pages: 20
photographs: 15
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 120gsm uncoated, colour
saddle stitched
1 pamphlet
pages: 16
photographs: 24
size: 28 x 21 cm
paper: 120gsm uncoated, colour
saddle stitched
Two nested pamphlets. One, WATER SAMPLES & JERRY CANS, 20 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm, contains photographs of ETA Lever Water Treatment Station, a supplier of water to Porto, and details chemicals added to the water as it enters the various treatment processes -capture, organic, suspended, mud, deep mud, rough. Water samples, collected in 5-liter jerry cans were used to submerse the photographs during the liquid memories online workshop. The other booklet, WET PAMPHLET, 16 pages, 28 x 21 cm, was created through immersion of historical and personal photographs with water treated with ozone, aluminum sulfate, mud, and polyelectrolytes. Some prints lost their digital definition, others got darker, and some tore apart.
Miguel Marecos
DEEP MUDS
1 pamphlet
pages: 28
photographs: 28
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 100gsm uncoated, colour
saddle stitched
2 posters
size: 42x 59.4 cm
photographs: 21+17
paper: 120gsm uncoated, colour
5 cards
size: 21 x14.8 cm
photographs: 5
paper: 120 gsm uncoated, colour
A 28 pages pamphlet LIQUID EXPERIMENTS, 29.7 x 21 cm, and poster, 42x 59.4 cm, feature zoomed in cropped closeup portraits of people that appeared in the 1909 study 'Contribution to Hygiene in Porto,' posing by water fountains and inside water tunnels, re-photographed using plastic lenses and bags filled with water as diffractive filters.
Another poster DECONSTRUCTION, 42x 59.4 cm, shows photoprints from Pasteleira 1950-90s Facebook group photographs after they were wet and frozen.
EXERCISE OF FELT SENSE, a set of 5 cards, 21 x14.8 cm each, present WATERYQUERY guided exercises. Taken as a dynamic meditative practice, they guide step by step through various stages of formulating liquid memories arising from the felt sense of photographing with water.
Joana Nascimento
ROUGH WATER
1 pamphlet
pages: 44
photographs: 30
size: 21x 14.8 cm
paper: 120 gsm uncoated
black & white
saddle stitched
2 posters
size: 42 x 29.7 cm
photographs: 4
paper: 100 gsm uncoated
black & white
A continuous pamphlet, 44 pages, 21x 14.8 cm, with 2 parts to be read in any direction. Part 1, LIQUID STONE / RAW WATER are photocollages, made of two halves, where the notion of “turbulence” is activated at the intersection of ground level watery places (personal photographs) and 19th century underground water tunnels (historical photographs); Part 2, FLUID WRITING assembles handwritten notes gathered during WATERYQUERY guided exercises, stained with paper marbling water technique.
Two posters, 42 x 29.7 cm each, WITH TWO STONES IN HAND and MARBLED PATH, invite you to two performative readings with water.
David Goldenberg
PARTICIPATORY TOOLS
1 pamphlet (split)
pages: 24
photographs: 20
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 120 gsm uncoated, colour
saddle stitched
A pamphlet DEVELOPING A TOPOLOGY OF POST AUTONOMY, 24 pages, 29.7 x 21 cm, in two halves, contains personal stories, photographs and selections from the book Post Autonomy (2010). Its conceptual framework
- as another model and space separate from the existing model of art -
is revisited in the context of liquid memories workshop. Diagrams show participants navigation through six breakout rooms, and can be used
to annotate readers' journeys through the printed sections.
Raul Pinto Simões
PASTELEIRA CITY
1 leaflet
page size: 29.7 x21 cm
paper: 80 gsm recycled natural, black & white
A leaflet, 29.7 x21 cm, À MEMÓRIA DE LUÍS “VAREIRO”
(‘TO THE MEMORY OF LUIS VAREIRO’), extract from the book
Pasteleira City, is a testimony written in memory of Luis Vareiro, a brave resident of Pasteleira who resisted the Portuguese dictatorship. He was caught putting up political posters in the streets of Porto. It was 1958.
He managed to run away and hide inside water tunnels leading to the wells in Pasteleira park, but the state police found him and tortured him to death.
NDMALO
PASTELEIRA ECOTONE
photographs
6 loose snapshots
size: 10.5 x14.8 cm
paper: 250gsm
silk finish
colour
6 loose snapshots, 10.5 x14.8 cm each, sourced from the NDMALO archive, the grass-roots activist association fighting for environmental justice in the Pasteleira area. The photographs show the park in the 1980s and 1990s and the backs have hand-written notes relating to historical spaces that have been gentrified and erased from current urban use, making it an invaluable resource in public history.
"WATER STORIES"
Alice WR
EMOTIONAL SOLVENT
1 pamphlet
pages: 20
photographs: 11
size: 21 x 29.7 cm
paper: 100 gsm uncoated,colour
saddle stitched
1 photograph
size: 10.5 x 14.8 cm
paper: 250 gsm recycled silk
black & white
1 acetate
size: 21 x 29.7 cm
250gsm silk paper, colour
A 20 pages pamphlet, 21 x 29. cm, proposes the use of water in service of a personal rebalancing strategy. Between thinking and feeling, it involves both mental and bodily experiences, the symbolism of homeostasis, and the visit to a pond or stream in a local garden. The simple ritual consists in releasing the image of a worry to the water stream and watch it flow to create a distanced representation of the issue at hand. Throw into the water an image that represents your worry, follow its course, photograph it, rescue what is left at the end, and that gives another point of view. Two loose photographs, one black& white, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, the other an acetate print 21 x 29.7 cm, are included, to throw in the water and start the process.
Teresa Huertas
SUSPENDED WATERS. FLUID LANDSCAPES
1 pamphlet
pages: 12
photographs: 17
size: 21x 29.7 cm
paper: 120 gsm uncoated colour
saddle stitched
1 poster
size: 42 x 59.4 cm
photographs: 28
paper: 100gsm uncoated colour
A 12 pages paperback, 21x 29.7 cm, and poster, 42 x 59.4 cm, using multiple captures and sequential montage to accompany the unfolding of Icelandic landscape. The formal variety of the liquid element contributes significantly to the vitality and diversity of the landscape, and the selected images correspond to an experience of place affected by the action of water vapor. Arising from the phenomenon of suspension resulting from vigorous falling liquid masses, the steam configures the permanent mutation of the landscape, and the plastic liquidity of this form of suspended water is responsible for the constant metamorphosis of the place. In a slow flow of erasure/dissolution and reconstruction of the visible, fluid matter, of varying densities, generates unstable atmospheres that affect the subject's experience.
Carla Fragata
SILVER SKY
1 pamphlet
pages: 14
photographs: 17
size: 21x 29.7 cm
paper: 100 gsm recycled natural colour
saddle stitched
1 poster
size: 42 x 59.4 cm
photographs: 1
paper: 90 gsm uncoated colour
A 24 pages pamphlet, 29.7x 21 cm,of a journey forced across the Atlantic mourning the diasporic waters of exile from Africa, a land between the sea and the desert. Since the home country water has been lost in childhood with displacement, and the trauma was kept a secret, the process of liquid memories involved resorting to other waters and tell the story through the father’s memories of the family trip aboard the ship Silver Sky. This involved returning family photographs of the freighter, notebooks fallen and recovered from water, rusty and oxidated objects, to water again. Inkjet prints were immersed in rainwater for 10 minutes (each minute representing a day’s journey on the freighter) with splashes of Vila Real de Santo António sea water, moss, blue acrylic paint, vinyl glue, salt, maritime clay from the Portuguese Costa Vicentina and Namib Desert sand. A poster 42 x 59.4 cm of people on board SILVER SKY conveys submersed memories of “the entire city on a ship.”
Eduardo Sousa Ribeiro
A CALL TO ACTION
1 pamphlet
pages: 44
photographs: 12
size: 21 x 14.8 cm
paper: 120 gsm uncoated
colour
saddle stitched
A 44 pages pamphlet, 21x 14.8 cm, started from a map found at Lisbon Flea Market. The back of the map records the moisture absorbed by the paper. From here, a series of photographs are taken in an exploratory way to the stains memorized on the paper.
Manuela Matos Monteiro
INFILTRATIONS
1 pamphlet
pages: 16
photographs: 8
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 100 gsm recycled natural, colour
saddle stitched
1 poster
size: 42x 59.4 cm
photographs: 2
paper: 120 gsm uncoated, colour
Water infiltrating walls in a 16 pages pamphlet, 29.7 x 21 cm, and poster 42x 59.4 cm. Current photographs of infiltrations, connecting to memories of the family home, where infiltrations were manifest in the water that, in the form of humidity, peeled the different layers of paint and lime. Infiltrations move water in silent, invisible, clandestine movements, creating capillaries through unpredictable routes. Memory, like water, infiltrates gently, and gently reveal itself.
Luís Carvalhal
WATERED DOWN (APAISADO)
1 pamphlet
pages: 28
photographs: 12
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 120 gsm recycled natural
colour
saddle stitched
1 poster
size: 42x 59.4 cm
photographs: 1
paper: 90 gsm uncoated
colour
The plane trip from Lisbon to the Azores is two and a half hours over the Atlantic Ocean. Observing the immensity of water surrounding the nine small islands, between Europe and America, was the first moment of passion for the archipelago. It inspired the creation of the photobook titled Apaisado that, for technical printing errors, was never published. A 28 pages pamphlet, 29.7 x 21 cm, documents the process of returning the photobook to the waters in its photographs. The deconstruction and manipulation of the book object, to create a set of pieces, symbolizes the power of the liquid medium over the ephemerality of the image on paper. A poster, 42x 59.4 cm, shows “The Rock.” Pages from the book were made into paper pulp and shaped to simulate a cliff from the periphery of the island,
a reference to the volcanic origin of the archipelago. This was then placed again over water and photographed almost like if it was a scale model.
Natércia Caneira
O DIA EM QUE EU MORRI (THE DAY I DIED)
1 pamphlet
pages: 28
photographs: 16
size: 29.7 x 21 cm
paper: 120 gsm uncoated colour
saddle stitched
A 28 sides pamphlet, 29.7 x 21 cm, narrating a near-death experience occurring whilst diving into the deep waters of Africa. A story of personal development narrated at a slow pace, the fluid passage between life and death with water filing the lungs, a journey that ends with personal growth and mind expansion.
Ana Botelho
GUSH
1 pamphlet
pages: 24
photographs: 6
size: 21x 14.8 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated
colour
saddle stitched
1 card
size: 10.5 x 14.8 cm
photographs: 2
paper: 170 gsm uncoated
black & white
4 panels
A 24 pages pamphlet, 21x 14.8 cm, the starting point being the public works for water extraction in the Douro River. Historical photographs were mixed with underwater photographs of the Mondego River. The goal was to wet dry areas of the photographs with a gush of distant waters. This process uncovered memories of laundresses, women who used to wash clothes in the river for a living, a story that is included in the pamphlet. A folded card, 10.5 x 14.8 cm, connects the industry of water extraction with an orphan photograph of the Lavadeiras do Mondego (Mondego laundresses).
João de Goes
O LAGO (THE LAKE)
paperback
pages: 44
photographs: 50
size: 21 x 29.7 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated
colour
perfect binding
A 44 pages paperback, 21 x 29.7 cm about a lake that was, in 1981, used as a swimming pool for a child. Childhood photographs were rephotographed to extract 3 layers: the child’s body swimming, the bottom of the lake, and the surface of water; a process centred around three layers of matter: diving, surface, and transparency. Considering the forty years interval between the child’s dives and the conceptualization of the project, the number of forty images was fixed. Ten series, each with four images. The result of the project is a 158x132cm vertical rectangular panel.
Inês R. Amado
CONNECTING WATERS
1 pamphlet
pages: 48
photographs: 6
size: 21x 14.8 cm
paper: 80 gsm uncoated colour
saddle stitched
4 cards
size: 10.5 x 14.8 cm
photographs: 4
paper: 250 gsm, uncoated
colour
1 poster
size: 42 x 29.7 cm
photographs: 2
paper: 100 gsm uncoated
colour and black & white
A 48 pages pamphlet, 21x 14.8 cm and a poster, 29.7 x 42 cm, where photographs of traditional fishing boats
are immersed in bags of water, hung on a clothesline, where different kinds of water connect. Water in historical photographs of Pedrógão beach, Coimbrão in Leiria, (fisherman going to sea) mingle with real waters from the Tagus River estuary, in Barreiro, both in Portugal. They join in liquidising residues of memories, that support always processes of reassemblage. The set also contains a deck of 4 photo-text cards, 10.5 x 14.8 cm each.
Manuela Vaz
DEPURA A ÀGUA (PURIFY THE WATER)
paperback
pages: 40
photographs: 15
size: 20.3 x 12.7 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated
colour
perfect binding
cover: 200gsm uncoated colour
A 40 pages paperback, 20.3 x 12.7 cm made of photographs of water treatment stations around Portugal.
The cyanotypes were developed with water collected from Ribeira da Granja (Granja stream), one of the most important streams that crosses the city of Porto and runs by the photographer’s door. For years Manuela facilitated guided tours to various water treatment plants and got to know the complex processes of water treatment. She selected photographs from her personal archives upon which she enacted a series of symbolic processes, and with local water worked on the entire cyanotype printing process, from the dilution of the chemicals to the washing of the images after exposure to ultraviolet light.
Renato Roque
CEDRUS FALSUS RENATI
1 paperback
pages: 56
photographs: 20
size: 14.8 x 10.5 cm
paper: 90 gsm uncoated
black & white
perfect binding
cover: 300gsm uncoated
A 56 pages paperback, 14.8 x 10.5 cm, narrates a public art intervention in Tondela Forest (Portugal), linking the ephemeral cycle of life and death to the ephemeral cycle of photographic processes. To memorialise a dead cedar tree, a living tree of the same species was photographed; black & white prints in a gradation (from completely underexposed white to overexposed black) were immersed in trays filled with water set up around the dead tree. The photographs – of the dead tree, of the same species tree and floating in the water – are all the Cedrus Falsus species. The irony of fate had made the photograph even more false than it always is. Photus Falsus Cedri Falsi.
Eliane Velozo and Severino Iaba
LAMA DE MORTE (DEATH MUD)
1 poster
size: 42 x 29.7 cm
photographs: 7
paper: 120gsm
uncoated
colour
A 4-page foldout newspaper, 42x 59.4 cm, about an ecological disaster
and pollution of brazilian waterways caused by greedy reckless corporations.
On November 5, 2015, in Mariana, Minas Gerais, Brasil, a dam of mineral waste breaks,
causing destruction in the rivers and forests where the mud passes by. Nineteen people
die buried in this toxic sludge. On November 11, 2015, reacting to what happened,
the artists Eliane Velozo and Severino Iabá perform the ‘site specific’ ‘Death Mud’,
in the center of Belo Horizonte city,Plaza 7, a place thousands of people pass by every day.
The public becomes involved in the project, pouring drinking water over the performer’s body,
easing his suffering under a scorching sun, a metaphor for the impossibility of minimizing
the suffering of those who died in Mariana.
Susana Paiva
SKIN
1 poster
size: 42 x 29.7 cm
photographs: 1
paper: 90 gsm
uncoated
black & white
A poster folded in four, 42x 59.4 cm, conveying the impression that everything happens on the skin surface.
A thermal sublimation print on photographic paper was submerged in tap water (from Paredes, Portugal), and left for 7 days left exposed to the weather, outside the house. A fragment from Vilem Flusser’s unpublished text
'The Skin' adds to the visualisation of skin’s materiality as a watery border.
Mide Plácido
ESTADO DE IMERGÊNCIA / STATE OF IMMERGENCY
1 photograph
size: 18.3 x 27.3 cm
paper: 120 gsm uncoated
colour
A print, 18.3 x 27.3 about waking up, some day in March 2020, thinking to be possible one’s home to become one’s tomb: a metaphor for who we are in a daily life that flows in waiting; I am condemned to be free; I need to act.
contact
paula roush ::: paularoush@gmail.com
msdm studio ::: msdm@msdm.org.uk