SOS:OK
(SAVE OUR SOULS: ZERO KILLINGS)
Kit: Guide+ Emergency biscuit in a box
1st edition for SOS:OK
(SAVE OUR SOULS: ZERO KILLINGS)
Curated by Frances Coleman
Coleman Project Space London
2nd edition for PUBLIC SERVICES
Curated by Tadej Pogacar
With: Marjetica Potrc, paula roush, Apolonija Sustersic, Anja Planiscek and Tadej Pogacar, Temporary Services
Pavel Haus, Laafeld, Austria and Sparwasser HQ, Berlin
[see exhibitions here]
Read the guide
- [PDF: 18MB]
- page by page flip
SOS:OK (SAVE OUR SOULS: ZERO KILLINGS)
Concept & editorial direction: paula roush
Graphic design: Ajdin Basic & paula roush
Texts: Zeigam Azizov, Alice Park & paula roush
Typeface: Gyro by Domen Fras
Format: Emergency biscuit kit (guide + biscuit in a box)
Guide: 40 pages
Dimensions: 12 × 18 cm
Printing: Offset lithography (Aldgate Press)
Paper: 120 gsm uncoated paper
Edition: 1000 copies
Publisher: msdm publications
Year: 2004
Developed for SOS:OK (Save Our Souls: Zero Killings), this artist publication transformed the format of an emergency food relief package into a critical publishing project addressing war, displacement and humanitarian aid.
The publication combines a guide to emergency food relief with a specially produced emergency biscuit, distributed as a boxed survival kit. Drawing on lived experiences of emergency food distribution during the wars in Bosnia and Portugal, the project questions how humanitarian systems, military logistics and public information shape everyday experiences of survival.
Presented as both publication and participatory artwork, SOS:OK blurred the boundaries between artists' books, design, social practice and political intervention. The project invited audiences to encounter emergency relief not as distant documentation but as a tangible object to be handled, opened and consumed.
The first edition was commissioned by Coleman Project Space, London, for the exhibition SOS:OK (Save Our Souls: Zero Killings), curated by Frances Coleman.
A second edition was produced for PUBLIC SERVICES, curated by Tadej Pogačar, and presented alongside works by Marjetica Potrč, paula roush, Apolonija Šušteršič, Anja Planinšek, Tadej Pogačar and Temporary Services at Pavel Haus, Laafeld (Austria) and Sparwasser HQ, Berlin.
Separately, SOS:OK also formed the special project for the inaugural Publish and Be Damned book fair through the participatory event Copylaws of the Kitchen, where emergency biscuits were shared with one hundred women and children as part of a collective publishing action.
SOS:OK (SAVE OUR SOULS: ZERO KILLINGS)
Temporary public artwork with Coleman Project Space in the site of the former Biscuit town, Bermondsey which allowed former workers of the Biscuit Factory to imagine and design a new biscuit to represent their neighborhood.
SOS:OK KIT [EMERGENCY BISCUIT + GUIDE TO EMERGENCY FOOD RELIEF OPERATION]
A new emergency biscuit, cooked to a specially designated recipe, was created to be distributed to visitors to the gallery and on the streets of Bermondsey. Crates of biscuits were distributed by horse and cart on Tower Bridge Road and on the Blue. The exercise was partly a reference to a relief operation of 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war. When the prussians lifted their siege of Paris, Peek Freans supplied thousands of biscuits to the starving citizens.
The exhibition at the Coleman ProjectSpace was staged as a relief operation, also a response to the hunger crisis which is an international emergency.
Bermondsey, in south-east London, was once affectionately known as Biscuit Town. Home to some of the largest biscuit factories in the country, it provided employment to generations of local families.
Now it’s a very different story. The biscuit factories have closed, and many of their former employees are unemployed. The only businesses that come into Bermondsey now are the large property developers buying up old factories and turning them into gated residences for well-paid workers at nearby Canary Wharf.
PUBLISH AND BE DAMNED SELF-PUBLISHING FAIR `
SOS:OK was the Special Project for the inaugural edition
of Publish and Be Damned PABD
with the event " Copylaws of the Kitchen"
A free participatory event for 100 women and children
sharing biscuits to celebrate the mutation of the printing
press into biscuit cutting anarchy.
For more information on PABD see here