Generative Spaces ARLIS Conference 2023.

Repair and Repetition

An Exhibition of Artist Books
Bookscapes Collective, and the BooksOnBooks Collection. 
ARLIS Conference 2023
The Forum, Norwich

Following Turn the Page Artist Book Fair in 2022, Jerry Jenkins, Curator, Emerging Media, Contemporary British Publications at the British Library, approached Jules Allen to inquire about the possibility of an Artist Book Fair being held alongside their annual Arts Libraries Conference. However the timing of this request was one year too late. Although Turn the Page proved to be a huge success, after two years of COVID restrictions and ten years of organising the event, the committee felt it was time to move on to new ventures. That new venture is Bookscapes Collective. 

The six of us have exhibited alongside each other during those ten years, and came together through our joint interest in working with Museum Collections and Historic places. We enjoy researching and making site specific work which open conversations between the past and present. 

However following the discussion it was agreed we would bring together an exhibition comprising pieces of our own work, alongside a selection from the BooksOnBooks collection. This is a private collection which has been catalogued and documented on line and offers posts and reviews about book arts, the history and future of the book, acts of reading, looking and their relationship. (more here).
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The pieces displayed were selected for their connection to the theme of ‘Repair and Repetition’. This title refers not just to the physical act of making, restoring and conserving books but also to the process of making art as an act of healing, recovery and meditation. The books demonstrate how art can be mindful and provide a way to process and cope with traumatic events, such as the recent COVID Pandemic. 

Artist books featured from the Books On Books Collection included
Anouk Kruithof Universal Tongue
Anouk Kruithof Pixel stress
J. Meejin Yoon - Absence (2004)
Pien Rotterdam - Absences (2015)
Salt & Shaw - ‘Look’ (2021)
Salt + Shaw ITHACA (2015)
Salt + Shaw WHORL
Nif Hodgson Fluid Horizons (2021)
Ken Botnick, Table of Contents (2020)
Simon Morris, Royal Road to the Unconscious (2004)
Maria Welch - ‘Erratic Obsession’ (2019)
Caroline Penn’s Standen (2014)
Helen Malone & Jack Oudyn, The Future of an Illusion (2017) 
Marian Macken - Ise Jingū: Beginning Repeated
Xiao Long Hua’s The Blind Men and the Elephant (2019)
Guy Laramée, A Caverna (2012) 
Joyce Cutler-Shaw, The Anatomy Lesson: Unveiling the Fasciculus Medicinae (2004)
 Lucia Mindlin Loeb, Abismo (2012)
Francesca Capone “Weaving Language: Language is Image, Paper, Code & Cloth’ (2018)
Masoumeh Mohtadi’s Blindness (2020).
Phil Zimmerman, High Tension (1993)

Helen Malone & Jack Oudyn, The Future of an Illusion (2017)

Jaqueline Rush Lee, The First Cut (2015),Lucia Mindlin Loeb, Abismo (2012)

Salt & Shaw, Look (2021)

Joyce Cutler Shaw, The Anatomy Lesson: Unveiling the Fasciculus Medicine (2004)

Guy Laramee A Caverna (2012) Pien Rotterdam, Absences (2015), Masoumeh Mohtadis Blindness (2020)

We are extremely grateful to the curator of the collection Robert Bolick who has always been hugely supportive of both Turn the Page and has promoted and brought exposure to many other artists, craftspeople, and institutions.

Works on show by Bookscapes Artists included

Jules Allen, Glasswing (2020)

Heather Hunter, Out of My Hands.

Jules Allen, Sorrow

Jo Howe, A Spoonful Of Sugar.

Jo Howe, Shall We Know Another

Jen Fox Sentience I

Jen Fox Landlines

Karen Apps An Object of My Own Making

Karen Apps Losing Touch

Karen Apps Wine Cordial and Cambric Handkerchief

Chris Ruston Field Notes: The Seashore I Know

Chris Ruston My Mothers Purse

Chris Ruston Hortus Domesticus, Natural Specimens and Observations of the Commonplace.

Karen Apps That Was Then & This Is Now

Karen Apps We Begin Again

​These Artist Books demonstrate the variety of ways emotions can be expressed through art and the medium of book in its widest sense. The exhibition was received well and generated interesting conversations about the importance of art, education and expression for well being.

These pieces not only provide a place for the individual artists to express themselves and process emotional content, but facilitated an openness and sharing of experience from the people who viewed them. Art is a communication, an invitation to share experience and to connect with others who may either been through a similar situation or offer a new perspectives and understanding.  

A Book Art Performance
​We Begin Again

Following an afternoon of presentations, delegates at the 2023 ARLIS Conference were treated to a special performance of one of the works on display. This special artist book was made during an immensely testing time for the artist Karen Apps. 

Karen explains
“It all began in 2017, when a friend’s farewell embrace revealed something was amiss. Despite previous regular checks and screening, the ‘Grey Dot’ (as I came to call her) had slipped under the radar. The diagnosis of cancer was devastating. My response to this news was to turn to creativity, in particular stitching and to trust that the creative process would provide a calm place in which to retreat.

Cancer diagnosis disrupts our perceived certainties. Stitching became an important place to contain the many fears and emotions that enveloped me. A place of refuge, a container of uncertainties and emotions. This work was slowly stitched and woven together.”

The pieces Karen refers to  were created during a two year period of intense and invasive treatments. Art and creativity became a place to ground these powerful anxieties. It provided an connection to the familiar in a world that was being turned up side down.

Karen continues 
“The physical act of ‘making’ became an important part of this healing process.
When so much felt out of control, the simple act of picking up a needle and thread became an anchor, my safe private space. Embedding images of rogue cells that were being contained and the demise of the ‘Grey Dot’, became an act of superstition, like touching wood. Slow meditative stitching allowed a focus on the moment at hand. Each stitch guiding the direction - navigating the unknown”. 

The various stitched works have been collated and bound into an oversize book. The pages are formed from extra large pillow case covers - perhaps a symbolic reference to the gesture of moments of laying down to rest. 

The performance was performed by two women - Ruth Lin and Audrey Vick, from the Whitwell Station Players, who brought their own silent yet dramatic interpretation to the moment. Slowly each page turned - a gentle unfolding, revealing a remarkable book of embodied emotions. The performance was enhanced as the haunting music of Bach and Mozart filled the room. In conclusion Karen stated

“These embroideries were never intended for exhibition but binding them together and being able to close the book, seemed a fitting conclusion to this period of my life”.