TITLE EXHIBITION: ə-books #1
Lara Gonzalez: made and published
CURATOR: paula roush
PROJECT: ə-books project space
for material publishing
LOCATION: 103 BoroughRoad
Elephant & Castle. London
YEAR: 2016
ABOUT THE WORK
Lara Gonzalez: made and published [ProCreate Project] is
an investigation into the relationship between mothering
and creative practice with 130 artworks that are part of
the ProCreate Project published as photozines.
Lara Gonzalez completed her practice-based MA at the
School of Arts and Creative Industries, LSBU.
Her practice consisted of building an online hybrid library
fe et ex – madeandpublished meant to function as an online
library or repository of artists’ pocket-sized books.
It offers the possibility to download (for free) works from
a PDF format into material books.
The website, together with the PDF editions also provide instructions to bind the books in a non-adhesive way.
Her dissertation examined the photobook in relation to
artist’s books, publishing technologies and publishing
cultures. Since her graduation Lara has used
madeandpublished to archive and publish the
ProCreate Project
[in partnership with the Women´s Art Library/
Make/Goldsmiths College, University of London.]
ProCreate Project is a platform that provides practical help
and financial support for artists, enabling them to continue producing work during pregnancy and motherhood.
The artworks by artists in the ProCreate Project were edited
into a collection of photozines, that either document
or translate the works into the artist’s book format.
To download ə-books #1 zine see here.
ə-books #1 Lara Gonzalez:
made and published
ə-books #2 Martin Toft and Gareth Syvret: Atlantus
ə-books #3 Amy Warwick:
Blame your parents [a photozine of
post-teenage years]
ə-books #4 Marc Vallée:
Vandals and the city
ə-books #5 Jessica Brouder:
I Believe in You
ə-books #6 Andreia Alves de Oliveira:
River Boats & Inner Thoughts
ə-books #7 Héloïse Bergman:
The Dying Art
ə-books #8 Tadej Pogačar + Dejan Habicht:
HU? Pre-Brexit Tour
ə-books #9 Jens Masmann:
L ND N
ə-books #10 Unveil’d:
Photobook #01
The scales of publishing
Conversation between paula roush and lara gonzalez, walking from ə /uh/-books project space (School of Arts and Creative Industries/ LSBU) to offprint book fair, Friday May 20th 2016, recorded as a voice memo in an iphone5.
pr - So I had this idea that we should have an interview and the title would be ‘the scales of publishing.’ We would be talking about what it means to be an indie publisher and compare the scale of your publishing which would be micro scale - with that of other publishers like Steidl or Xavier Barral that publish in a macro scale. How do you see yourself as a publisher? Did you plan it or did it just come out as a result of your work with the book as a medium?
lg - My publishing activity came out of working with the book as a medium. When I did my first book I saw the creation of an imprint as an ironical gesture, so I assumed the identity of made and published press. Then I realized that as an artist I wanted something more interesting for an online presence and expanded on the use of made and published: it is very simple, unpretentious, and I coudnt steal yours (laughs), I really like your imprint (mobile strategies of display and mediation)... I looked for synonymous but coudnt find any…so ended up with made and published.
Yeah, you cant have msdm, that one is really mine ((laughs) , but you know , made and published has similarities, and its simpler, congratulations, anyone can memorise it unlike my imprint. Still, as a latin term, made and published has an interesting history…
After my first book I decided to create a publishing project of hybrid books that could be downloaded and printed it in a home printer, it was a very DIY (do it yourself) approach to book publishing and that was called fe et ex. In latin fe et ex means made and executed, it was a way for publishers to assert their activity and I found it a really interesting term for current publishing practices.
So is made and published an upgrade/ update of made and executed for the 21st century?
Its an update and it is also more accessible.
So fe et ex is the same as made and executed, and the same as made and published. And do you want to talk about the way made and published got involved with the ProCreate Project?
I was friends with Dyana Gravina the founder of the ProCreate Project, she was working on this project for 2 years, with artists of multiple disciplines, from performance to visual arts. She was offered the Women’s Library –Make-at the Goldsmiths College and I suggested to create an archive for the project, the ProCreate Project Archive exploring the relationship between archiving and publishing.
Can you explain how it works, what’s the relationship between archiving and publishing in the ProCreate Project?
It started with an open call for submissions, artists were invited to submit up to 8 jpegs and up to 250 words and my intention was to edit that into visual poetry rather than a catalogue and then we would have an installation where all the artists could be displayed and at the same time it would be a way to build an archive for the future.
And then you designed all the booklets...
Yes, I created some rules for consistency, Some rules are: the folding lines are always visible to show the process and give visual consistency, the photos are always placed at the beginning of the publication and the text at the end, to alternate the text with images in a way that it wouldn’t give the message away too quickly and creates a non-linear narrative, and same typography throughout...
And all the booklets follow a template...
Yes, I created a template that comes from the hybrid fe ex project, but this time I wanted to simplify because I found that fe et ex was still not accessible enough, the folding and binding process although involves no glue it is still quite complicated so I wanted to simplify.
And in what way did you simplify?
In the way that it adds another dimension because they are also posters and when you fold them they become photozines.
published in: ə-uh-books-1 zine
contact
paula roush ::: paularoush@gmail.com
msdm studio ::: msdm@msdm.org.uk