Fresh From The Field – Dwelling in the Margins: Art Publishing in Aotearoa
Bold yellow, bold thought. The latest release from independent publisher GLORIA Books is Dwelling in the Margins: Art Publishing in Aotearoa, edited and designed by Katie Kerr. Today’s Fresh from the Field coincides with the Auckland book launch for this curated collection of stories and essays, from thirty of New Zealand’s art and design leaders.
Join the GLORIA books team tonight at Strange Goods to celebrate this exciting new publication https://www.facebook.com/events/1060076081127780
The Brief / Project Kaupapa:
On the periphery of New Zealand’s publishing scene, there is a rich and varied cottage industry of small press publishers that are pushing the boundaries of book-making. From this rich set of makers come books that are inventive, attentive and thoughtful. Books that are often genre-bending and indeterminate. Books that exist as beautiful objects, often made to be admired rather than mass-produced. Despite the huge costs of printing, and even bigger challenges of distribution, alternative publishing in Aotearoa is thriving.
Published by GLORIA Books and edited and designed by Katie Kerr, Dwelling in the Margins: Art Publishing in Aotearoa introduces the leading figures of independent publishing in their own words. Through a curated collection of stories and essays, thirty practitioners reflect on their craft, speculate on the changing landscape of book-making, and imagine alternative frameworks for the future of publishing.
The publication includes contributions by Alan Deare, Alice Connew, Anita Tótha, Balamohan Shingade, Bridget Reweti, Bruce Connew, Catherine Griffiths, Chloe Geoghegan, Chris Holdaway, Dominic Hoey, Ella Sutherland, Erena Shingade, Gabi Lardies, Harry Culy, Haruhiko Sameshima, Imogen Taylor, Jonty Valentine, Judy Darragh, Katie Kerr, Lizzie Boon, Louise Menzies, Luke Wood, Matariki Williams, Matthew Galloway, Melinda Johnston, Samuel Walsh, Sarah Maxey, Simon Gennard, Sophie Davis, Sophie Rzepecky and Virginia Woods-Jack.
The Design Response:
Dwelling in the Margins is the third in a series of experimental paperbacks produced by Katie Kerr and published by GLORIA Books. Founded by Kerr and Berlin-based photographer Alice Connew, GLORIA is an intercontinental publishing platform that produces artist-made books, functioning as an experimental research facility to explore an interdisciplinary approach to publishing. The artist/designer is heavily involved in every step of the process, producing objects that express a singular intention — from concept to design to print. For better or worse, sourcing content, editing, designing, printing, distributing and promoting every book in the GLORIA canon is under the designer’s creative control.
The books published by GLORIA place equal weight on the design as on the content of the book. Extensive design research is undertaken for each publication, in direct relation to the content but also exploring ongoing enquiries of the maker. For Kerr, Dwelling in the Margins is part of a wider investigation into the format of the paperback book. It nods to graphic designers like Quentin Fiore and Richard Hollis who broke away from the traditional layout and played with alternative ways to engage the reader. In today’s world of the designer who can apply themselves to anything, this methodology focusses on a single format — with all its restrictions — to consider the development of a repetitive, craft-like practice. By designing in the same format over and over, what can be learnt?
www.katie-kerr.com
www.gloria-books.com
