Developed with Iz Öztat in collaboration with Torpdo and Eller med a
Birding, BAÇOY-KOOP (Printing, Duplication and Distribution Cooperative), mimeograph printed flyer, 2016
Residency dates: 18 September – 18 October 2017
PRAKSIS is pleased to develop Residency No. 7, For A Rainy Day: Publishing As A Site Of Collectivization with artist Iz Öztat (Turkey), in collaboration with non-profit bookshop and publisher Torpedo and graphic design studio Eller Med A.
Iz Öztat writes that she “plans to explore the ways collectives can use publishing as an integral part of their artistic practice: articulating artistic imaginaries, shaping communities and proposing alternative value systems and political horizons. While looking at precedent practices shaped and informed by particular historical circumstances, we – a group formed by an open call and supported by an artist-run Oslo organisation – will search for models of publication that are conceptually, formally and socially relevant to our own experiences and commitments. We will experiment with a range of analogue and digital publishing technologies and diverse approaches to dissemination, exploring the collectivities we imagine and the publics we would like to engender.”
Visits to publication focused archives in the Oslo area will be arranged, and residents will access a variety of print facilities during the residency, with the goal of producing an edition, or series of editions, through collective action.
Each member of the group is welcomed to lead an action/workshop that offers insight into their background, interests or methodologies.
About Iz Öztat
Iz Öztat (Istanbul, 1981) lives in Istanbul. She is a member of BAÇOY-KOOP (Printing, Duplication and Distribution Cooperative), a group that utilizes the mimeograph technology for collective, independent publishing in Turkey’s current climate of repression. The cooperative conducts archival research into mimeographed printed material and dialogues with the technology’s previous generation of users – investigations that lead to collectively-produced printed matter, actions and installations. She is a collaborator in HTTPpRESS, an online platform that publishes content with free/libre licences or notices. With Fatma Belkıs, she explores the convergence of water and freedom, and she communes with the shade of Zişan (1894 – 1970) who appears to her as a historical figure, a channeled spirit and an alter ego. She has taught at Oberlin College (USA) as a Visiting Professor.
Selected exhibitions include Tamawuj, Sharjah Biennial 13, United Arab Emirates (2017); Land without Land, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany (2016); Saltwater: A Theory of Thought Forms, 14th Istanbul Biennial (2015); Conducted in Depth and Projected at Length, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Germany (2014); Rendez-vous 13, Institut d’art Contemporain, Lyon, France (2013); and Here Together Now, Matadero Madrid, Spain (2013).
About Torpedo
Founded in 2005, Torpedo is a non-profit Bookshop and Publisher devoted to the promotion and production of artists' books, art theory and critical readers in contemporary art. Torpedo hosts and organize discursive activities, exhibitions and events related to book launches and the process of publishing.
About Eller med a
Eller med a is a graphic design studio, founded in 2011 by Lotte Grønneberg, Karen Grønneberg and Marte Meling Enoksen, based in Oslo and Copenhagen. Eller med a works with producing, initiating and materializing projects within the art, design and literature field. Their main focus is on the book as a medium, and on the different aspects of a publishing process.
The Residents
PRAKSIS worked with Iz Oztat (TR) to select seven talented participants: Vika Adutova (RU), Belić, Westerlund and Müller (SE, SE, CH), Eva Funk (AU), Araiz Mesanza (ES), and Gabrielle Paré (CA).
Events
From the Residency
Collective activity
Throughout the residency the group went through a series of arranged and self-lead activity that focused on aspects of publishing and collaboration. The photographs below give a small insight into the range of visits, workshops, public events and other activity that went on.
Following a visit to Guttorm Guttormsgaards Archive, the resents where offered the opportunity to work hands on with the archive and to later return to present and exhibition of their work. For this the group presented individual and collective works, including a performance specially staged in one of the archive's attics, and a collectively produced publication consisting of a set of nine volumes produced individually by each participating artist and PRAKSIS with two constraints: an A5 format and a three-week working time. The individual volumes come together as a single collective edition.
Reading resources
Claire Bishop. The Social Turn: Collaboration and its discontents. Art Forum (2006)
Clementine Deliss, Roaming, Prelusive, Permeable: Future Academy. In Steven Henry Madoff (ed). Art School: Propositions for 21st Century. MIT Press (2009).
Annette Gilbert (ed.). Publishing as Artistic Practice. Berlin: Sternberg Press (2016).
Stine Hebert and Anne Szefer Karlsen (ads). Self-Organized. Open Editions (2013)
Jennifer Liese. Social Medium: Artists Writing, 2000 - 2015. Paper Monument, (2016)
Maria Lind. Complications; On Collaboration, Agency and Contemporary Art (2009)
Blake Stimson and Gregory Sholette (eds). Collectivism After Modernism. Minneapolis, London: University of Minnesota Press (2007)
