Typefaces don't care, typefaces do care

Dear Friend is a monthly letter format publication covering design events, issues, and ideas. This publication distributed via snail mail is initiated by Sandra Nuut and Ott Kagovere.

The publication edited by Sandra Nuut & Ott Kagovere features all the letters from the Dear Friend publishing project, which they initiated at the Graphic Design Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2018. The book includes contributions by Singapore-based design writer Justin Zhuang, designer and writer Else Lagerspetz, and artist Lieven Lahaye. The book is designed by Ott Kagovere and published by Lugemik and Estonian Academy of Arts.

Texts by Justin Zhuang, Lieven Lahaye, Else Lagerspetz

Letters written by Alicia Ajayi, Stuart Bertolotti-Bailey, Claudia Doms, Nell Donkers, Maarin Ektermann, Rosen Eveleigh, Maryam Fanni, Saara Hannus, Eik Hermann, Paul John, Maria Juur, Ott Kagovere, Maarja Kangro, Arja Karhumaa, Kristina Ketola Bore, Nicole Killian, Rachel Kinbar, Tuomas Kortteinen, Keiu Krikmann, Kadri Laas, Else Lagerspetz, Lieven Lahaye, James Langdon, Jungmyung Lee, Kai Lobjakas, Michelle Millar Fisher, Maria Muuk, Sheere Ng, Sandra Nuut, Laura Pappa, Jack Self, Indrek Sirkel, Paul Soulellis, Triin Tamm, Laura Toots, Alice Twemlow, Loore Viires, Sean Yendrys, Justin Zhuang

Guest edited by artist Helen Marten and literary agent Harriet Moore with Matthew Stuart, this volume of the journal considers what it means for a publication to be an allegorical container. A simple box in which to gather multiple things, an economical set of permutations — rational in one sense, yet defiantly flexible to move. Contributors were approached with an open invitation; some explored the multiplicities of containing or containers, while others filled the printed vessel with their own ongoing preoccupations. The following pages perform as envelope, bag, shell, net, fold, alarm, letter and instruction. There are holes to disappear within; smoke to knot and wind; shadows to unfold — a context that takes in and binds, finding new kinships from unforeseen proximities.

THE FIRE FLOWERS AND THE FLOWER LIGHTS UP –
Lucy Mercer
(spine)

WE SHALL GREET THE MOON AGAIN
Walter Price
(front cover)

BACK PAGES OF ALGIERS DIARIES 2018
Lydia Ourahmane
(inside front & inside back cover)

AN INTRODUCTION TO / NOTES ON / INSTRUCTION FOR THE FRONT NOVEL
Eliza Barry Callahan
(pp.1–16)

SATURDAY MORNING
Kathryn Scanlan
(pp.25–29)

KILLDEER
Jason Schwartz
(pp.33–38)

ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS
Rosmarie Waldrop
(pp.45–61)

"THE BATHROOM"
Najwa Barakat
(pp.67–76)

ARMY ROLLS, A CIRCUMSCRIPTION
Roy Claire Potter
(pp.81–91)

CONCHOMANIA
Felix Bernstein
(pp.95–109)

O-POEM
Line-Gry Hørup
(pp.113–129)

THIS MUSCLE
Cally Spooner
(pp.133–153)

STERLING PARK IN THE DARK
Susan Howe
(pp.159–179)

COCONUTTERY
Mathelinda Nabugodi
(pp.183–193)

YOUR SELF CONFIDENT BABY
Aurelia Guo
(pp.197–206)

BIOGRAPHY OF A NET: HOLDING A VOLUME
Daisy Hildyard
(pp.211–225)

A GUIDE TO THE POETRY OF LI HO
Eliot Weinberger
(pp.229–235)

WOMEN SMOKING
Charline von Heyl
(throughout & p.239)

INFRATHIN
Marcel Duchamp
(throughout & p.239)

THE MAZED WORLD
Rachael Allen
(bookmark insert)

UNTITLED
Helen Marten
(back cover)

Child’s Replay is a hallucinatory homecoming. As we follow THE CHILD in a series of private re-enactments, the present self is revealed as the past’s fragile construction. Pursuing the banality of trauma, a first-person character juxtaposes childhood events with internal misrepresentations, reflections on the emotional toll of migration, psychoanalytic theory, Brazilian history, and literary criticism. An exploration of the impact that language and fiction have on real bodies, Child’s Replay assembles a hybrid portrait of memory and anti-memory. 

This publication is limited to 100 copies, which are signed and numbered by the author. 

The theme was built around the idiom “VOSTOK”, the title given by Stéphanie Pécourt to her cycle dedicated to performative semantics, in which carte-blanches signed by guest curators at the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles are deployed. Buried beneath several kilometers of ice, Lake Vostok acts as an invitation that both fascinates and refuses us. This sub-glacial lake on the edge of Antarctica, the largest identified, becomes the mirror-object of our desires and fears for the abyssal depths. The title of the program, Now I am a Lake, is taken from Sylvia Plath's poem Mirror (1961).

This booklet includes the scripts and texts of the performances, translated exclusively into French for the occasion, as well as images from the videos presented at the eponymous event. The compilation focuses on Sylvia Plath's poem Mirror, and includes an introductory text by curator Pauline Hatzigeorgiou. 

edited by SB34
graphic design by Raphaëlle Serres / Solid Éditons

Contributions by Signe Frederiksen, Pauline Hatzigeorgiou, Margaux Schwarz, Hagar Tenenbaum, Sylvia Plath & Eleanor Ivory Weber

For nearly two years the author collected phrases from the exhibition press releases she received through email, posting certain of them on Facebook in a rather unsystematic way (that is to say, when she felt like it), with only one change, that of the personal pronoun, so each statement appeared vainglorious, absurd, even tragic. She supposes the measure was if they made her laugh or gasp or used words she deplores when thinking or writing about art. The posts gathered quite a following. Some people still mention them to her, and others have asked her to look at their own press releases before circulation.

These extracts have provoked laughter, disbelief (especially when performed as public readings, when she has  been obliged to swear to their veracity), self-recognition, and yes, shame.

She had only three rules: 1) She would not quote the press release of anyone she knows (certainly she could have done—she must admit that both a friend and someone she dislikes intensely have slipped in, and she fervently hopes neither ever reads this book); 2) She would not alter anything except the pronoun (this is largely true; however, for this book, she corrected some errors of punctuation and spelling, changed spellings to their English form, and employed her beloved Oxford comma); and 3) She would not use anything the artist had written (this, too, is true, save for one exception that was too wonderful not to include).

Finally, she  gathered a collection of endorsements, some along the way, others when she indicated this work was done. She is still alive and she continues to labour in obscurity. 

First launched in 2012, and published by mfc michèle didier (micheledidier.com), == is a small-run arts publication, edited by Matt Keegan. ==#2, 2015, is designed by Su Barber and published in an edition of 500 by Capricious Publishing. Barber and Keegan worked together on North Drive Press (northdrivepress.com) between 2005-2010, and this publication shares a variety of traits with NDP.

==#2 is a non-thematic arts publication contained in a box with a 96-page bound volume featuring artist-to-artist interviews, texts, and transcriptions. Six loose multiples are also included.

Contributors include: Sam Anderson, Uri Aran, Fia Backström, Darren Bader, Judith Barry, Stefania Bortolami, Daniel Bozhkov, Milano Chow, Anna Craycroft, Lucky DeBellevue, Cristina Delgado, Haytham El-Wardany, Jake Ewert, Vincent Fecteau, Corrine Fitzpatrick, Harrell Fletcher, Rachel Foullon, Aurélien Froment, Kenny Greenberg, Calla Henkel, Leslie Hewitt, Jaya Howey, Adelita Husni-Bey, Iman Issa, Ruba Katrib, Jill Magid, Jo Nigoghossian, Aaron Peck, Max Pitegoff, David Placek, Olivia Plender, Lisa Robertson, Andrew Russeth, Amy Sillman, Diane Simpson, Greg Parma Smith, Jessica Stockholder, Martine Syms, and Anicka Yi.