The politics of publishing; researching encounters between artists' books and intersectional feminist tools.

My research project addresses artists' books and the politics of publishing, creating forms to uncover forgotten histories in this field, through a critical design approach which includes feminist tools. I will work on a series of hybrid publications (paper, digital, spatial, oral) to re·activate objects and histories and re·circulate them. The goal of the research project is to make untold narratives visible and activate the relation with historical, present and initiatives and narratives. How to tell these stories: through individual figures, groups of people, through objects? How to fill in the blanks — address the things that disappeared and integrate them? How to archive and transmit these stories? How to shift the traditional focus on monographic objects to collective ones, from books to "ephemeras"? The artistic context of this research is that of artists' books and artistic publishing. The theoretical context is art history, and more specifically the history of artists' books, as well as gender and postcolonial studies. The political context is that of activists working to shape the way we deal with knowledge and history (depatriarchising and de-colonialising). The research methodology is built on critical, research-based design methods. Throughout, intersectional feminist (design) tools will be used, notably an attention to who speaks for whom, in order to find a balance between speaking about/for and letting the primary source speak.

Keywords:ARTISTS' BOOKS, INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM, POLITICAL DESIGN

Disciplines:History of art, Graphic design, Typography

Project type:Collaboration project