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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.

During a residency on Fire Island, artist and writer Hannah Black decided to tackle a highly daunting project: the 2020 novel.

The result of her efforts, Tuesday of September or the End, is a slim, playful work of speculative fiction. Written in the aftermath of the early months of the pandemic and the uprisings of summer 2020, the novel explores the ruptures of the year with a satirical sci-fi bent. Black chronicles the lives of two characters, Bird and Dog, as they contend with rapidly changing political possibilities during the pandemic while the run of Moley Salamanders (i.e. Bernie Sanders) concludes and aliens finally invade earth. Through a galvanic vision of how the riots of 2020 might have turned revolutionary, Black offers a meditation on collective life. This crucial novel invites readers to consider who we are—and, by extension, what we are here for—when our normal referents are muted, deleted and upended.

Hannah Black (born 1981) is a New York-based visual artist, critic and writer from Manchester, England. Her work spans video, text and performance and draws from communist, feminist and Afro-pessimist theory. She is the author of Life (2017, with Juliana Huxtable) and Dark Pool Party (2016). Black is represented by the gallery Arcadia Missa in London and Isabella Bortolozzi in Berlin.

Mucus in My Pineal Gland is the debut collection of New York-based artist and writer Juliana Huxtable (born 1987). Gathering poems, performance scripts and essays, this startling volume expands Huxtable's critique of gender, sexuality, politics, whiteness and history while establishing her as a singular poetic voice.

Juliana Huxtable is a New York City-based writer, performer, and artist. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, including Artforum, Candy, Tropical Cream, and Mousse. She was included in the 2015 New Museum Triennial, curated by Ryan Trecartin and Lauren Cornell.

Se Te Subió El Santo is a collection of self – portraits taken by the artist directly after she awoke every morning while away on a week-long residency in Iowa City, IA at the Center for Afrofuturist Studies in Spring 2016. This daily practice confronts notions of the artist’s interests in rendering a full self implicit of gender, race, sexuality, and spirituality while challenging and collapsing the intersections of each identity as well.

The title of the work is taken from Ana Mendieta, the Iowa Years: A critical study, 1969 through 1977 where Julia Ann Herzberg writes in the dissertation:

Ana and Raquelin Mendieta’s vocabulary contained many Afro-Cuban idiomatic expressions. For example, they would often respond to a friend who was acting in an unruly or hyperactive manner by asking” “Se te subió el santo? (“Are you in a trance?”) In the Afro-Cuban context, the expression “subirse el santo” is used in religious ceremony when the orisha/saint takes possession of the believer.

The monograph also includes an essay by author Akwaeke Emezi.

First edition, 94 page, black and white, leather bound hardcover with white foil embossment 

TIONA NEKKIA MCCLODDEN is an interdisciplinary research-based conceptual artist, filmmaker and curator whose work explores, and critiques issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and social commentary. McClodden’s interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations. Themes explored in McClodden’s films and works have been re-memory and more recently narrative biomythography.

This issue uses the font designed for german news magazine Spiegel by amazing Lucas de Groot. The color poster is part of the full print of the series “Les Filles d’Amsterdam” by photographer Jean-Luc Moulène. It is the first time this series is printed in book form and in an exclusive interview the artist tells the story of that work.

Contributors: Lily Wittenburg, Maren Grimm & Jakob Krameritsch, Michael Milano, Assaf-Evron, Sophie Thun, Juliana Huxtable, Interview with Jean-Luc Moulène, poster by Jean-Luc Moulène, Magda Tóthová, Peter Machen on Brenda Fassie, Mariah Garnett, Shady El NoshokatyTommy Støckel

The book includes Mendieta's first published comprehensive filmography resulting from three years of collaborative research conducted by the Estate of Ana Mendieta and the University of Minnesota as well as original essays by John Perreault, Michael Rush, Rachel Weiss, Lynn Lukkas, Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, and Laura Wertheim Joseph.

The first book-length treatment of Mendieta's moving-image practice, Covered in Time and History aims to locate her films centrally within her larger oeuvre and at the forefront of the multidisciplinary shifts that characterized visual arts practice during the 1970s.

Exclusive works designed by Laure Prouvost for her carte blanche at the Mucem in Marseille, a series of immersive and poetic installations in the heart of Fort Saint-Jean, photographed by Raphaël Massart for this cut-out book, between an artist's book and an exhibition catalogue, accompanied by drawings and critical texts.

For the Mucem, Laure Prouvost has created a series of immersive installations in the heart of Fort Saint-Jean. Repurposed everyday objects, glass sculptures, sound mirages, and underwater videos shot in the depths of the calanques and around Frioul compose a sensitive and poetic universe. Between fiction and reality, the artist invites visitors on a sensory journey where everything is transformed: forms, narratives, and life itself.
The book was conceived as a visual journey leading from the Old Port of Marseille to Fort Saint-Jean and into the very heart of each work. To recreate this encounter between artist Laure Prouvost and the Mucem, there is a constant dialogue between the exterior—the sea, the stone of the fort—and the interior—the intimacy of the installations that unfold in the air, in the bowels of the earth, and underwater... Designed in close collaboration with the artist, the book captures this moment through photographic work carried out especially by Raphaël Massart and an evocative form designed by the artist: like a book that also floats in the Mediterranean. To accompany this visual unfolding, a booklet embedded in the heart of the book contains texts by Hélia Paukner, curator of the exhibition, and Mathilde Roman, art historian.

Published on the occasion of the eponymous exhibition at the Mucem, Marseille, in 2025.

The third Publiek Park publication – Walking Guide – combines essays, archival fragments, and artistic voices to trace both the exhibition route at Plantentuin Meise and the historical path that led from the creation of the Jardin Botanique in the heart of Brussels to its relocation outside the city. Following the logic of a quilt, layering different perspectives, textures, and timelines, the book connects artistic narratives with history and reflections on urban gardens, public space, and botanical imaginaries. Just like the exhibition, the publication offers not merely a portrait of a place, but a reflection on the multiplicity that defines it.

Alongside documentation of the exhibition and contributions from the participating artists, this year’s Walking Guide features writings by Nikolaos Akritidis, Denis Diagre-Vanderpelen, Koen Es, Lana Jones, François Makanga, Noam Youngrak Son, and Jean Watt. The two parks are portrayed in photographs by Michiel de Cleene, with book design by Victor Verhelst and Corbin Mahieu bringing all of these elements together.

This publication is made with the generous support of Plantentuin Meise and all partners.