We Are Publication

Jonathan Allen, Rachel Cattle, Jenna Collins, Volker Eichelmann, John Hughes, Christian Newby, Andrea Stokes

The artists group We Are Publication (WAP) embraces an open and unbound notion of what it means to publish. Collage, cut-up and fragmentation are WAP’s central modes of operation which allow the group to explore multi-form, poly-vocal and durational publications comprising sound, video, posters, sculptural forms, carpets, immersive media, broadcast, performance and printed matter. As such, WAP’s activities form assemblages of encounters and materials that test out and expand what it means to make public.

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Capacity does not explain but cultivates a September garden
2022

Whitstable Biennale 2022 education programme delivered by Cement Fields

Newspaper

How does the production of jointly-produced art change when we conceive of our interactions and entanglements as forms of gardening? A series of speculative plots (manifesting in 2022 as a newspaper) has been cultivated over two seasons to date, interweaving images, texts and ideas to create a living thing.

The Whitstable Biennale took place between 11 - 19 June 2022. A newspaper produced by the collaborative artists group We Are Publication was developed for distribution at horticultural venues around Whitstable.

Addition contributions from:
Bill Balaskas, Sarah Bennett, Institute for Arborphilia, Animals and Aesthetics / Eva-Retzdorff-Garten (Antonia Ulrich and Ingo Voigt), Jarrett Erasmus, Simone Heymans, Maureen de Jager, Raphaela Linders, Paulina Michnowska, Hodan Omar Elmi, Nydia Swaby, Mónica Rivas Velásquez, Mark Aerial Waller

Supplement layout: Matthew de Kersaint Giraudeau

The September Garden: Plots
2021

KOKO journal
Text-Image Parergon (Peter Benz & Nils Röller)

https://koko.zhdk.ch/text-image-parergon/

Journal Article

Included in KOKO’s ‘TEXT-IMAGE PARERGON’ space, which explores potentials and challenges in the relations of scriptorial and pictorial signs. Collboratively edited by Peter Benz (Academy of Visual Arts) and Nils Röller (Zurich University of the Arts).

Modes of collage have been a central preoccupation for the artists group We Are Publication (WAP). Participants have now set out to explore whether they can cultivate an artwork that is ‘grown’ from several discreet constituents. To this end WAP has drawn on contemporary American poet Rosemarie Waldrop’s recent appellation ‘gap gardening’ to suggest that the placement of words (and plants) generates intermedial zones of transformation and potential. Initially, visual and textual ‘seedlings’ were ‘planted’ in the form of a custom-produced newspaper sent to WAP’s participants. Repeated physical engagement with this newsprint composite prompted further approaches for generating September Garden’s nascent domain. The subsequent ‘plots’ (seen here as Season One) were then replanted, cut back, and otherwise tended to, germinating a series of textual assemblages (Season Two). Tracing and adapting Waldrop’s productive border zones, the collages and textual assemblages constitute WAP’s current findings in this experiment in jointly conducted research and speculative publishing.

Contributing Authors: Dr Jonathan Allen, Dr Rachel Cattle, Dr Jenna Collins (assembly) Volker Eichelmann, John Hughes, Christian Newby, Andrea Stokes.

September garden
2020

Radiophrenia https://radiophrenia.scot/ and Glasgow on 87.9FM

Radio broadcast

Sound work that abridges the writing of contemporary American poet Rosemarie Waldrop, whose recent appellation ‘gap gardening’ refers to the productive interstices between words, and between worlds.

Placement does not explain, but cultivates a September garden
2020

Camden Arts Centre
Arkwright Road
London NW3 6DG

Web commission

Placement does not explain… abridges the writing of contemporary American poet Rosemarie Waldrop, whose recent appellation ‘gap gardening’ refers to the productive interstices between words, and between worlds.

We Are Publication’s ‘garden’ extends the group’s interest in jointly conducted research and speculative approaches to publishing. Its preliminary ‘groundwork’ took the form of a custom-made newspaper comprising images and texts generated specifically for the purpose of reassemblage by contributors under conditions of lockdown and separation.

As Waldrop suggests, the placement of words (and plants) generates intermedial zones of transformation and potential as much as it might propagate meaning and fixed territories. We Are Publication’s cultivation of such border zones includes amongst others 1980s pop chanteuse Elkie Brookes, cuttings specialist William Burroughs and an errant Cottingley fairy, each recast as unlikely gardeners within an expansive domain undergoing repeated sonic and visual disturbance.

https://camdenartcentre.org/whats-on/public-knowledge-placement-does-not-explain-but-cultivates-a-september-garden-we-are-publication

Mountain Machine
2020

Radiophrenia https://radiophrenia.scot/ and Glasgow on 87.9FM

Radio broadcast

A soundscape which takes it cue from the secluded alpine sanatorium described by Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain (1924). Individual sonic contributions are re-imagined as if circulating within the spaces of a remote mountain refuge, where acoustic fragments pass and mingle via a series of rest-cures, breakfasts, luncheons and dinners, eventually to disperse in slumber.

t h e H O L D
2019

Stanley Picker Gallery
Grange Road
Kingston upon Thames KT1 2QJ

Exhibition

Photography Ellie Laycock

~~‘t h e H O L D~~ is an exhibition by the artists’ group We Are Publication (WAP) featuring contributions from over 50 artists. It consists of posters, a soundscape, a hand-woven carpet, and a series of live events all set within an expansive sculptural display structure occupying the gallery space.

The poster is a key production site for WAP and provides an important working-tool for collective visual and conceptual dialogue. Contributed materials are grouped and regrouped, with salient conversations between component parts gradually taking hold. At the Stanley Picker Gallery, this process of contingent reassembling is accentuated through a multiplicity of spliced and overlapped poster material.

The exhibition’s primary structure is formed from steel decking of the type commonly used for theatrical stage and exhibition design; its modular character mirrors WAP’s own combinatory approach to artistic production. Suggestive of a schematic mountain-scape, the structure grips and scales the gallery’s own vertiginous architecture, encouraging metaphoric ascents, descents and transversal movement.

Preoccupations with mountainous landscapes are further taken up by t ~~h e H O L D~~’s soundscape whose indeterminate atmospheres take their cue from the secluded alpine sanatorium described by Thomas Mann in The Magic Mountain (1924). Individual sonic contributions are here re-imagined as if circulating within the spaces of a remote mountain refuge, where acoustic fragments pass and mingle via a series of rest-cures, breakfasts, luncheons and dinners, eventually to disperse in slumber.

Addition contributors include: Holly Antrum, Bill Balaskas, Sarah Bennett, George Charman, Ilsa Colsell, Craig Cooper, Edward Dorrian, Abbe Fletcher, Keira Greene, Bruce Haines, Felicity Hammond, Mark Harris, Ayano Hattori, James Irwin, Gareth Jones, Simon Josebury, Lau Chak Kwong, Anna Lucas, Stine Ljungdalh, Katy Macleod, Rachel Mader, Russell Miller, Louis Nixon, Tom O’Dea, Alex Pollard, Elizabeth Price, Mónica Rivas Velásquez, Joey Ryken, Daniel Shanken, Stephen Sutcliffe, Charlotte Warne Thomas, Andy Tam, Erika Tan, Mandy Ure, Sebastian Utzni, Roman Vasseur, Mark Aerial Waller, Steven Warwick, Matt Williams.

We.Are.Cut.Up.
2019

Art Licks Weekend radio station with TACO! and RTM
+
Radiophrenia https://radiophrenia.scot/ and Glasgow on 87.9FM

Radio broadcasts

The Art Licks Weekend is an annual festival that celebrates the activity of artist-led and non-profit project spaces across London. For its seventh year, the Art Licks Weekend (17–20 October 2019) takes on the theme of Interdependence: considering how participating projects work within a network of friendship, exchange and shared dialogue.

Addition contributions from: Holly Antrum, Ilsa Colsell, Edward Dorrian, Keira Greene, Bruce Haines, Felicity Hammond, James Irwin, Gareth Jones, Simon Josebury, John Lawrence, Bill Leslie, Anna Lucas, Stine Ljungdalh, Katy Macleod, Alex Pollard, Monica Rivas Velazques, Joey Ryken, Daniel Shanken, Charlotte Warne Thomas, Matt Williams, Andy Tam, and Mandy Ure.

Broadcast on Art Licks Weekend radio station, run in partnership with TACO! and RTM. 17/10/19 8-9pm

We.Are.Cut.Up.
2019

DeKalb Gallery
Pratt Institute
200 Willoughby Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11205
USA

Exhibition

we are sequence
we are movement
we. are. cut. up.

We Are Publication’s latest project, We.Are.Cut.Up. emanates from the group’s recent manifesto and expands on central preoccupations around cut-up, fragmentation and modes of collective re-composition and re-assemblage. We.Are.Cut.Up. consists of a soundscape and a series of posters, both specifically conceived for the DeKalb Gallery at Pratt Institute, New York.

Addition contributions from: Holly Antrum, Ilsa Colsell, Edward Dorrian, Keira Greene, Bruce Haines, Felicity Hammond, James Irwin, Gareth Jones, Simon Josebury, John Lawrence, Bill Leslie, Anna Lucas, Stine Ljungdalh, Katy Macleod, Alex Pollard, Monica Rivas Velazques, Joey Ryken, Daniel Shanken, Charlotte Warne Thomas, Matt Williams, Andy Tam, and Mandy Ure.

Notes on a Carpet,
2018

Unit 21
Pier Approach
Western Esplanade
Southend-on-Sea SS1 2EH

Residency

We Are Publication took up a one-day residency at Focal Point Gallery’s Unit Twenty-One on the 17th October 2018. During this time the group produced an experimental and speculative publication; the shape and form of which was determined on the day and presented to the public between 4pm and 6pm.

Notes on a Carpet,
2018

Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High Street
London E1 7QX

Tableshare

‘We Are Publication will be sharing a table space at the Book Fair, Whitechapel Gallery, with artist-led record label and publishing imprint Oh (John Lawrence/Mat Jenner).’

A shared table for invited artists and independent publishers. Each publisher shares the table with another for 2 – 3 hour time slots throughout the duration of the book fair.

Publishers include:
AND, Behind the X, Chelsea Space, Common Books, Copy Press, Flat Time House, Clare Gasson, Independents United, Keep it Complex, LCBA, Sara Mackillop, Mörel Books, Oh, OOMK, PrintRoom, Publication Studio, Setsuko, Test Centre, The Everyday Press, We are Publication.

Notes on a Carpet
2018

Five Years, Unit 2B1, Boothby Road, Archway, N19 4AJ

Performance and installation

Part home-furnishing, part-collage.

At Five Years, a luxurious hand-tufted floor carpet stages underfoot the research concerns of the group’s current contributors. How can the mutability of textiles foster individual critical interests as collective representation? This question attempts to embed the conventions of publishing i.e.,contributors, editors, printers, alongside live aspects of performance and theatre, allowing the carpet to function as magazine, as stage, and as a record recounting the groups’ own sense of shared play and experimentation.

Performance running order:
Mind to Mind & How, 1951, Austin Osman Spare (extract) – Jonathan Allen
A Machine Chamber in 4 parts, part 1 – John Hughes
Bergman’s House – Jenna Collins
A Machine Chamber in 4 parts, part 2
Pastiche by Gareth Jones
Le Gai Savoir, 1969 Jean-Luc Godard (extract) – Jenna Collins
Your Singing Eyes and Fingers (after Elizabeth Frasers Song to The Siren, 1983) – Rachel Cattle
A Machine Chamber in 4 parts, parts 3 + 4 /Lift Safety Devices, 1928 (extract)
+ Carpet Bodies, augmented reality app – Daniel Shanken (throughout)

Carpet constructed by Christian Newby

Diagram of an Hour
2017

Launch at Cubitt’s studio
8 Angel Mews, Islington, London N1 9HH

Vinyl record

Diagram of an Hour is a 60 minute radio broadcast first aired at 11am on the19th of June, 2015 as part of the Modulations series on Resonance 104.4 fm. Proceeding from a diagram of an hour on paper, the sound work was produced and assembled by We Are Publication.

This record documents the broadcast in 15 minute segments as it was received in several places, as well as the final section of the original composition.

Record 1
A Side. Stream (repeat) recorded London, UK. 21/07/15 16:45:00
B Side. Stream (live) recorded Visby, Sweden, 19/06/15. 12:00:05

Record 2
A Side. Broadcast (104.4 FM) recorded London, UK. 19/06/15. 11:00:00
B Side. Master, produced and compiled London, 2015.

Recordings of broadcasts made by Jenna Collins and Andrea Stokes, compiled by Jenna Collins, cover by Daniel Shanken, supported by the Contemporary Art Research Centre, Kingston University. 2017

Diagram of an Hour
2015

Broadcasting Research in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
Resonance 104.4fm

Radio broadcast

Scoring, Composition, Publication.

In this programme, We Are Publication, the Fine Art Research Group at Kingston University, score an hour into seventeen discrete sections of various lengths, according to a prescribed notation.

This programme was made by We Are Publication Research Group at the Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture, Kingston University London: Jonathan Allen, Anat Ben‐David, Rachel Cattle, Jenna Collins, Lucy Coogle, Volker Eichelmann, Dean Kenning, Stine Ljungdalh, Katy Macleod, David Panos, Cullinan Richards, Andrea Stokes, Charlie Tweed, Roman Vasseur, Martin Westwood and Esther Windsor. Edited by Jenna Collins.

First broadcast on Friday 19 June 2015 as part of the first series of ‘Modulations’.

We Are Publication
2014

Premiered Institute of Contemporary Art

Video

We are sequence we are movement we are cut up we are reel.

Experiments elaborated intensive collaborative studio workshop props words object text image performance imagine the edit. We are sequence we are movement we are cut up we are reel.

We are publication
2014

Institute of Contemporary Art, 2014

Performance

It’s hubris, hu… bris.

We know about the dangers. That you might think it meaningless. That if nothing much happens you will give it up. And that if his magic trick doesn’t quite work you will feel shortchanged. She says people shouldn’t take these things for granted. She says it can exist just as well this way. We insist on serving up the scraps. We insist on second thoughts. Then we can stop and think of the other things – the emperor, the ink, the blindfold. Because it’s not supposed to end properly.

Ex libris – Volker Eichelmann
Bookmark – Stine Ljungdalh
Torn page – Rachel Cattle
Coffee stain – Martin Westwood
Folded corner – Jonathan Allen
Marginalia – Audrey Reynolds
Crease – Anat Ben David

Organised by Rachel Cattle, Jonathan Allen and Volker Eichelmann.
Presented at the ICA, London

Jenna Collins

selected projects and information