Edna Press titles and takeaways will be included at a table with 845 Press, Baseline Press, and others at this year's Gathering on the Green in Wortley Village, London.
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Overdue and more on time than could ever be expected: A Study of Mundane Being is now available for purchase.
A collaboration between Jeff Downer and Justas Patkauskas, this project is a case of a photographer and a writer trying very hard not to talk to each other. Dialogue is overrated - most people either speak at or past one another. Downer and Patkauskas wanted to be honest about that and to speak past each other productively. To that end they introduced a recording and censoring device: Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad, a novel about the futility of communication. The novel's characters share languages but miss out on common meaning, walk the same streets while living in different worlds. Yet their lives are not tragic. There is a sense of autonomy in their non-alignment. In the end, Under Western Eyes became like a street they both shared: two strangers with their own styles, habits, and preoccupations who have come to recognize each other on their separate ways along a serene boulevard. This book is a travelogue of what was found there.
Special offer:
Purchase A Study of Mundane Being
with dog in swimming pool for $50 (reg. $65)
Winter 2020
Edna Press is proud to announce the second iteration of its Canadian Artists' Pension Program. This ongoing postcard series quotes from speculative and concrete conversations with artists about what an artists' pension program could/should look like (or not). "Pension Program" hearkens back to activist-affectionate histories of mail art in Canada, as well as to London, Ontario as the originating home of Canadian Artists' Representation (now CARFAC) Patches on a found work apron, by Parker Branch (2020). Parker Branch is a collaboration between artists Anna Madelska and Jason Hallows. This postcard has been published in conjunction with Parker Branch's exhibition, thumbs point to eyes, at Support project space. The repeated movement of manual labour marks the surface of a fabric and gives a concrete form to time spent and work done.
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A Black Box drawing workshop was recently organized by artist Sarah Munro at the Canadian grade school on the NATO Military Base in Mons, Belgium. Very appropriately, the name of the base is called SHAPE: supreme headquarters of allied powers in Europe.
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Edna Press is pleased to announce A Study of Mundane Being, a collaboration
between Jeff Downer and Justas Patkauskas. This project is a case of a photographer and a writer trying very hard not to talk to each other. Dialogue is overrated - most people either speak at or past one another. We wanted to be honest about that and to speak past each other productively. To that end we introduced a recording and censoring device: Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad, a novel about the futility of communication. The novel's characters share languages but miss out on common meaning, walk the same streets while living in different worlds. Yet their lives are not tragic. There is a sense of autonomy in their non-alignment. A joint artistic venture must be a missed encounter, or it risks subjugating one medium to the other. At the very least we wanted to avoid the conceit implicit in commentary. But we couldn't just babble. So what to do about the violence of discourse? Speech always requires a losing side. At last we decided to deface somebody's else's text rather than ours, for which there is no better candidate than an author so famous we could never harm them. To hell with you, Joseph Conrad. In the end, Under Western Eyes became like a street we both shared: two strangers with their own styles, habits, and preoccupations who have come to recognize each other on their separate ways along a serene boulevard. This book is a travelogue of what we found there. A Study of Mundane Being will be available in early 2020. This is Volume 2 in the Split Folio series.
Summer 2019
Images from the London launch of Black Box at Support. Guest readers Kevin Heslop and Kim Neudorf with Sarah Munro led the audience in Faith Patrick's visualizations and collaborative drawings.
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Edna Press is pleased to announce Black Box: The Objectless Perception Game. Artwork by Sarah Munro; Writing by Faith Patrick. Black Box is a creative visualization deck of 10 playing cards for all ages. Visualization can reduce stress, increase focus, and foster inspiration and creativity. Black Box uses language patterns and visualization prompts taken from the field of hypnosis. Light a candle, dim the lights, lay back, and allow the descriptive inductions to guide your visualization journeys.
The London, ON launch of Black Box will be at Support (260b Clarence Street) on Monday, July 29th at 7PM. This event will be a collaborative drawing session with guest readings of Black Box prompts by local artists, authors, and friends. Both Sarah Munro and Faith Patrick will be present. All are welcome to attend.
Black Box is the first edition in Edna Press's Split Folio series, which commissions London-based authors and artists to collaborate with authors and artists from outside London towards works that uniquely integrate text and image. The series' title irreverently co-opts business language, with 'split folio' traditionally referring to the splitting of expenses by an employee while traveling: the employer reimburses lodging and meals, but incidental expenses that make business travel tolerable (mini-bar purchases, in-room movies, long-distance phone calls) must be made on the employee's dime. Split Folio #2 will be released in August, 2019.
Spring 2019
Images from "Inside of a dog it's too dark to read" at Good Press, Glasgow. artists Graeme Arnfield (London, UK), Taylor Doyle (London, ON/UK), Rosie Roberts (Glasgow, UK) and Josh Thorpe (Glasgow, UK) read and respond to dog in swimming pool with images, video, poetry, and conversation. Topics ranged across dogs, companionship, Marxism, arts economies, accessibility and emotional labour within artistic education, and publishing for communities.
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"Inside of a dog it's too dark to read"
In July 1977, press photographer Mike Jordan submitted a roll of negatives of a dog in a backyard swimming pool in London, Ontario. Two of the images were printed in the London Free Press as a lifestyle feature on the unseasonably hot weather. dog in swimming pool (Edna Press, 2018) reproduces all twenty-two of Jordan's photographs. The book pays playful homage to photo narratives of the 1960s and 1970s. Canadian artists Kelly Jazvac, Kim Ondaatje, and Lena Suksi provide text responses to the photographs and the city they once called home. In the interest of seeing where individual acts of looking and captioning might lead, the parameters of the texts were left open to each author.
In this same spirit, artists Graeme Arnfield (London, UK), Taylor Doyle (London, ON/UK), Rosie Roberts (Glasgow, UK) and Josh Thorpe (Glasgow, UK) have been invited to read and respond to dog in swimming pool. All are welcome to join this informal evening of reading, pretending you read the reading, reading the reading, and not reading the room.
The title for this event comes from Groucho Marx: "Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read." This quote was the namesake for the 2003 exhibition, "Outside of a Dog: Paperbacks & Other Books By Artists," guest curated by Clive Phillpot for Baltic, The Centre for Contemporary Art. The two events are not affiliated, but Edna Press publisher Ruth Skinner has been spending a lot of time at the Baltic, reading.
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Reading event, April 15th, 6-8PM at Good Press, Glasgow (all are welcome)
Winter 2018
Edna Press has partnered with Out of Sound Records and Grooves Records on the publication of "One Step Below," a short story by Kirsten Kurvink Palm of WHOOP-Szo. This hand-bound book is included in the band's 2019 limited edition 7", Weather Comes, available at Groovesrecords.
"One Step Below" will have a soft launch at Kangaroo Variety on December 14th, 2018. This live talk show will feature an acoustic set by WHOOP-Szo, a reading of "One Step Below" by Misha Bower, conversation and music from Steve Lambke of Constantines/You've Changed Records, and a collaborative set by Construction & Destruction and James Kirkpatrick/Thesis Sahib, = Delta Blip. Edna Press/Ruth Skinner will be talking about artists' publishing, community collaboration, and her tenure as manager of DNA Gallery's bookshop.
dog in swimming pool and Canadian Artists' Pension Program are now available at Art Metropole.
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Edna Press is at this year's 3/edition in Toronto, thanks to OCADU's Emerging Artist and Publisher Section.
Alongside dog in swimming pool, Edna Press will be featuring Inventory/shipping labels, a limited edition and free takeaway work by Adam Revington.
And a small run of totes have been printed with London-based Antler River Press to mark Edna Press's first book fair.
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dog in swimming pool is now available at bookartbookshop in London, UK: a not-for-profit shop selling artists' books and small-press publications. Shop blog and twitter.
dog in swimming pool launches at Carl Louie on August 25th from 7-9 pm. Reading by Lena Suksi, video from Kim Ondaatje's Blueroof Farm, food by Practically Empty Pantry / Paige Esther Postma.
