Author Archives: PrintRoom

We celebrate Winter Solstice with glühwein, miso snacks and our fresh Riso prints by Johan Kleinjan and Erika Herose, who will also make miso bookmarks and snacks for the occasion.Johan Kleinjan and Nicole Martens (NM) will spin records

We’ll donate the revenue to Zeilen van Vrijheid – for medical aid and energy for people in Ukrainia.  

Journeys Across Archives features a series of artist presentations and performative readings, each recollecting subversive processes towards archiving, mapping, and re-envisioning existing ‘environments’ — as much in the literal as metaphorical sense. 

+ Screening of Trees of Rotterdam (2022) by Alice Ladenburg and Ollie Palmer,  launch of a special edition print 

+ Book presentation of A Dutch Landscape (Rollo Press, 2022) by José Quintanar 

+ Instructions to get lost: A triangular reading by To See the Inability to See

+ Storysharing by Ratu R Saraswati

More information:

Still from Trees of Rotterdam by Alice Ladenburg and Ollie Palmer

Trees of Rotterdam is a journey through the skies, streets and trees of Rotterdam, merging high-tech point-cloud scans with individual perspectives on what those trees mean to the city and its people. The film draws on Alice Ladenburg‘s publication Fourteen Trees of Rotterdam – a guide for city exploration, published by PrintRoom and Peter Foolen Editions and presented last year. The guide focuses on 14 trees, including geographical, botanical and historical information, archival photographs, observational writing, ink drawings, scientific data and images created using laser scans. Through these multiple representations, the user is encouraged to consider the role that trees have within our cityscape, and how their own perspective can change the way they can experience and understand their environment.A special limited edition Fourteen Trees of Rotterdam Riso print will be launched on the occasion of the new film.

Pre-print / Pages of the Book: A Dutch Landscape by José Quintanar

José Quintanar’s A Dutch Landscape (Rollo Press, 2022) encompasses a five-year-long visual research. Quintanar attentively studied various landscapes throughout the Netherlands and translated them into rhythmic, deconstructed linear forms. Simultaneously, he mapped out the complex historical narratives embedded in these terrains through texts and photographs. The book itself is both a landscape — a gathered pile of material, a small mountain in an otherwise flat landscape — and an archive.

In the framework of the final event of Between Four Walls — a series of nomadic presentations, initiated by Notes on Hapticity Collective in collaboration with PrintRoom — artist Ratu R. Saraswati and the artistic research collective To See the Inability to See (Arefeh Riahi, Maartje Fliervoet and Martín La Roche Contreras) will present performative readings. These readings arise from their respective contributions to 16 10 20, a riso-printed anthology of performance scores, published by PrintRoom earlier this year.

Through an essayistic and performative process, To See the Inability to See weaves stories, thoughts and visual material together with books and objects from various archives. In a pragmatic way the collective tries to temporarily bring those together to allow them to narrate a new story. Some of the topics that its research is concerned with are exclusion, alienation and belonging.

Ratu R Saraswati: Route of Flowers 

Artist Ratu R Saraswati (Saras) creates stories that emerge from everyday encounters that she believes are not coincidental. A mother of a dead meerkoet, a captivated Java kancil: she wishes to tell the stories of the beings of the city of Amsterdam, a city far away from her home in Java island.

19.00 – 22.00

Finale

Of Bebe Books’ residency at PrintRoom

We are delighted to launch Bebe’s 2023 Calendar by Cheng-Hsu Chung, accompanied by a nasty playlist curated by A.nushka. Mark your name in our special FINALE-copy and we’ll send you a dazzling surprise on your birthday.

Bebe Books, founded by Mert Sen and Ruud Van Moorleghem, creates queer spaces across many countries, by organizing and curating LGBTQ+-friendly events and supporting promising artists and collectives. In this spirit, we celebrate the Finale with more Insiders and Outsiders:

+ Tuyen Le and Noam Younrak Son will present their Toilet Zine.

+ Artist talk by YinYin Wong.

+ Pernilla Ellens will showcase her book, About series #12: The Ritual, published by Gloria Glitzer, accompanied by RISO printed posters and free stickers.

+ Amy Suo Wu will activate the Serenity Department Webshop! 

+++ Make your own origami Penguin with the Bebe’s +++

For more information, see below:

Cheng-Hsu is a Taiwanese animation artist and director based in Berlin. Chung’s practice focuses on using bizarre images and character performances in animation to articulate the changing nature of emotion, erotic relationships, and the experiences queer bodies encounter in today’s queer culture. 
The Calendar is riso printed at PrintRoom during the Bebebooks Residency.

Tuyen Le and Noam Younrak Son’s The Toilet Zine talks about how gender norms offer comfort to those who fit in the given stalls, but it is also time to start queering our predicaments on design and architecture – starting with the toilet!

YinYin Wong is a designer, artist, educator and publisher. Their practice revolves around dissemination, circulation, agency, and access to art through publishing, public interventions, and graphic design. Most recently, their practice investigates and dwells on juxtapositions between the art canon that they inherited from their education in The Netherlands and their experience of marginalization from a Southeast Asian diasporic perspective.

With a critical view, Pernilla Ellens’s practice places footnotes on our existing systems and gives space to the autonomous and the subversive. About series #12: The Ritual is an artwork in book form, made in one week with the Berlin artbook publishing house Gloria Glitzer in September last year. The Ritual is about submitting to sensuality in a primordial, pristine, perhaps pagan way. Pernilla is dedicated to freeing the body from myths of purity. 

The Serenity Department is a collaborative intergenerational mending project between mother, Maria Ling Qing Huang, who lives in Sydney and Daughter, Amy Suo Wu, in Rotterdam. Their eponymous label makes bags and accessories with upcycled material. All proceeds of the label go to Maria’s retirement fund, so that she might come to know serenity in the near future.

Friday 2 December 2022

10.00-17.00 – Archiving, editing and printing workshop
with Rob van Leijsen

19.00-21.00 – Book presentations 

The Error is Regretted
with Anita Di Bianco and Anja Lutz
&
Building Human Relations Through Art 
with Seda Yıldız and Rob van Leijsen

You are warmly invited to meet the artists, authors and designers at PrintRoom! Scroll down to read more.

** Archiving, Editing and Printing Workshop

If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to get far, go with a group. Creating contemporary narratives of collective effort, starting from the Škart archive
with Rob van Leijsen
10.00-17.00

The content from the book Building Human Relations Through Art, about the Belgrade based collective Škart, will serve as a starting point for this workshop with graphic designer Rob van Leijsen.

The archive of Škart is filled with traces, indicators and signs of collective production. From coupons to choirs to street installations to poems, Škart’s artistic collaborations demand a significant effort from each participant, who are encouraged to speak out and contribute to the whole.

By extracting visual and written forms of collaboration from the Škart archive, we will set in motion a process to define our personal contemporary narratives of collective effort and production. Each participant’s contribution will take shape throughout defined stages of the editing process, propelled by an ongoing back and forth between individual contribution and collective consideration. Finally, we will decide on the desired printed outcome of the workshop together. All image making techniques are valid, as long as contributions can be reproduced.

The workshop takes place at our Riso space and is open to any type of image makers, researchers and writers who are comfortable with collaborative processes and printmaking – among others, Riso printing.

Sign up through workshop@printroom.org to join the workshop!

** Book presentations

The Error is Regretted with Anita Di Bianco and designer Anja Lutz
and
Building Human Relations Through Art with Seda Yıldız and designer Rob van Leijsen
19.00-21.00

The Error is Regretted is the 20-year anniversary publication of Anita Di Bianco’s project Corrections and Clarifications. Next to a new 96-page newspaper edition, that reflects the current news, the book contains text contributions by Anita Di Bianco, Anna Bromley, Francesco Gagliardi and Florian Wüst. Corrections and Clarifications is an ongoing newsprint project, an edited compilation of daily revisions, retractions, re-wordings, distinctions and apologies to print and online news from September 2001 to the present. An intermittent newspaper without headlines, a distillation of the predictive patterns and algorithmic amplifications of the last two decades, from fake news to the attention economy.

Building Human Relations Through Art captures traces of Škart’s practice from the 1990s to the present. Belgrade based collective Škart has been operating within and around existing hierarchies of the art world and everyday life, working with marginalized groups, NGOs, and anti-war movements. Škart‘s understanding of the artwork is fluid and relationship based. No matter the medium – poetry, embroidery, graphic design, choir, or radio broadcast – its artistic explorations are characterised by self-organisation. Its activities range from working at street level to participating in the Venice Biennale of Architecture. The book brings together conversations with Škart’s members, a collection of images, poems and drawings, as well as texts by Zdenka Badovinac, Branislav Dimitrijević and Milica Pekić.

We would like to thank Goethe-Institut Rotterdam for supporting the presentation Everyday Errors and Actions.

Biographies

Anita Di Bianco was educated at Columbia University and the SUNY-Purchase Center for Editions, earning a Masters in Fine Arts from the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, with postgraduate study at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. Born in New York City, Di Bianco has lived and worked in Germany since 2007, after an initial year-long residency at the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. Her video/film installations and works in print have been shown internationally at numerous venues since 2000. She has taught courses and seminars at various fine arts academies, most recently at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste from 2016 to 2019.
http://www.anitadi.net/

Anja Lutz is a Berlin-based book designer specialising in contemporary art publications. She was the initiator and designer of the experimental publication platform shift! that has won numerous awards and was present at various festivals and exhibitions. Anja is also co-founder and art director of The Green Box, a publisher of artist books, where she is developing and designing books in close collaboration with the respective artists. Lutz has studied at LCP / University of the Arts in London and the Jan van Eyck Akademie in Maastricht. She has been a visiting professor at American University of Beirut, Hyperwerk in Basel and Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle.
https://www.anjalutz.com/

Seda Yıldız (1989, Istanbul) is an independent curator and writer based in Hamburg and İstanbul. Her practice is inspired by thinking across disciplines including art, music, design, literature and activism. She is particularly interested in taking part in process-oriented, open and experimental projects that foster collaboration and exchange with a wider audience. Currently she is working on curatorial projects to be realised at the Kunstpavillon & Neue Galerie Innsbruck (2023) and Škuc Gallery Ljubljana (2023). 
https://yildizseda.com/

Rob van Leijsen (1983, Tilburg) is a multidisciplinary graphic designer and author based in Geneva, Switzerland. He runs his own design studio next to his teaching position at the visual communication department of HEAD – Genève. In 2012, he obtained a Master of Design Spaces and Communication at HEAD – Genève with his graduation project Art Handling in Oblivion, a catalogue that brings together five art collections that have been stolen during wartime (edition fink, 2014). His most recent book is the bilingual essay Copy, Tweak, Paste: Methods of Appropriation in Reenacted Artists’ Books (éditions clinamen, Geneva, 2020). 
http://www.robvanleijsen.nl/

with Colorama and Werkplaats Typografie

Thursday 24 November 2022
19.00-21.00

After three years, PrintRoom was delighted to once again join Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair this last October.

We’re eager to share this year’s haul featuring presentations by some of the fair’s exhibitors: publisher Johanna Maierski of Colorama (Berlin, DE) and participants of Werkplaats Typografie (Arnhem, NL)

Johanna Maierski will present 
Gritli – The Moth Diaries I&II by Sophie Florian and Hanako Emden
Portrait of the Artist as a Writer by Stefanie Leinhos
Down Memory Lane by Nygel Panasco
and Clubhouse 17

The presentation will have a focus on genre-bending, the international community that Colorama is fondly connected with and sharing resources.

Colorama is a riso printing studio and art press based in Berlin. It has been run by Johanna Maierski since 2015. Colorama’s publications and exhibitions present contemporary artists in the field of experimental comics and artists’ books, as well as projects that explore speculative forms of narration, collective narration and alternative knowledge production.

Colorama understands publishing and printing as an artistic, collaborative practice and a democratic tool to participate in cultural and political discourses. Colorama understands themself as part of a wider community of publishers and printers that believe in para-institutional learning, equity and autonomy.

–

Werkplaats Typografie will talk about the shop Kardesler Groente & Fruit 2 that they presented at Printed Matter’s NY Art Book Fair 2022.

The shop is established based on the compression, transfer and decompression of Kardesler Groente & Fruit, a fruit & vegetable shop located in Amsterdam West. As a common place of interaction, trading goods and stories, daily encounters and small gestures, this shop blends in seamlessly within the neighborhood. By researching and embodying the context of the physical market as a stage, Kardesler Groente & Fruit 2 presented a hyperreality of embedded storytelling, with a focus on the commonly overlooked quotidian qualities of the omnipresent fruit & vegetable shop.

Kardesler Groente & Fruit 2 is a project instigated by Oriol Cabarrocas, Philipp Hesselberger, Seokyung Kim & Sixin Chen, with contributions of Werkplaats Typografie Year 23 & 22. 

Our Haul // Books by:

Sming Sming Books, Printed Matter, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, Sally Alatalo, Unity Press, Jeffrey Cheung, Soberscove Press, Gloria Glitzer, Heather Benjamin, The Everyday Press, Childish Books, Shifter, Interference Archive, Homie House Press, Coloured Publishing, Primary Information, New Documents, Book Works, Thick Press, Terry Bleu, Happy Potato Press, Temporary Services, Gato Negro, Other Forms, Stefan Marx, Water with Water, Draw Down, Edition Taube, Paul Shortt, Domain, Prem Krishnamurthy, Colour Code, Further Reading, Knust /Extrapool, Dale Edwin Wittig, Roma Publications, Michalis Pichler, After 8 Books, Spector Books, Breakdown Break Down Press, RESEARCH AND DESTROY NY CITY, Inventory Press, My Comrade Magazine, Onomatopee a.o.

In November and December 2022, Bebe Books from Ghent (BE) is Publisher-in-Residence at PrintRoom. 

During the residency, they will publish the Calendar 2023 by Cheng-Hsu Chung, co-produced with PrintRoom. They will also produce a publication about gender-neutral toilets with Tuyen Le, and will publish a cheeky, naughty zine together with PrintRoom. Scroll down to read more about Bebe Books.

Programme overview

* Riso workshop: Wrap the Hood

Thursday 10 November
18.30-21.00
Robert Fruinstraat 52, Rotterdam

Create your own Riso printed wrapping paper with Bebe Books and PrintRoom’s Riso Chef Teuntje Fleur! We will provide you with graphic pleasures and objects found in the neighbourhood. You can bring your own findings and/or designs and work them into your very personal gift paper. No need to buy presents: the paper is the gift.

Please sign up by sending an email to riso@printroom.org.

* Karaoke Salon

Sunday 13 November
15.00-18.00
PrintRoom, Schietbaanstraat 17, Rotterdam

This afternoon, Bebe Books will introduce their work and collective practice. Come along and sing your favorite song! We serve drinks to clear your throat and get you in the mood. Bebe Books will sing along and make you feel at home.

* Calendar Launch 

Friday 9 December (more soon)
Presentation of the Calendar 2023 by Cheng-Hsu Chung, published by Bebe Books and PrintRoom.

Bebe Books creates queer spaces across many countries, by organizing and curating LGBTQ+-friendly events and supporting promising artists and collectives. The collective’s mission is to build a safe space where they harmonize pleasure, arts, and education. Besides their curatorial practice, they travel with their fanzine collection to connect, communicate, and unite with other people. 

Bebe Books was founded by Mert Sen and Ruud Van Moorleghem, in response to a lack of queer cultural activities in their hometown of Ghent. After a while, the Bebe Books family has grown, and Noam Youngrak Son, Emma Raymakers, Fae Felis, and Seppe Laeremans have become part of the collective. They organized and curated more than fifty events and completed several site-specific installations. Read more about their practice on www.bebebooks.be.

PrintRoom joins the new edition of Zine Camp!

Saturday 5 and Sunday 6 November 2022
WORM, Boomgaardsstraat 71, Rotterdam

Visit Zine Camp for an overview of free talks and workshops!

PrintRoom will have a table with zines on both days, and we will present a programme with Notes on Hapticity Collective: Between Four Walls. 

Saturday 5 November 2022

16.00-16.20 — Ingvild Syntropia
Artist talk: Time is a bird in the backyard — a short talk on deep time
18.00-18.20 — Elena Kostenko 
Screening: Grounding (2022)
18.30-19.30 — Karolina Rupp and Rachel Pursglove
Performance: Take Care

Between Four Walls is a public programme created by Notes on Hapticity Collective (NOH) in collaboration with PrintRoom. It officially launches the collective’s newest printed project — an anthology of performance scores, titled 16 10 20, riso-printed and published in a limited edition by PrintRoom. 16 10 20 explores what ‘performance’ means when under conditions of quarantining, social distancing, or having to otherwise limit contact with others. What is a performance when you are your own audience? The publication features contributions by: Kees van Leeuwen, Karolina Rupp, Yindi Chen, Rachel Pursglove, Pelumi Adejumo, Elena Kostenko-Lefebvre, Hannah Dawn Henderson, the collective To See the Inability to See (Arefeh Riahi, Maartje Fliervoet and Martín La Roche Contreras), Andrea Knézovic, Sands Murray Wassink, Ingvild Syntropia, Ratu Saraswati, and Lillian Vlaun.

16 10 20 will be available for purchase from the table of PrintRoom at Zine Camp. We hope to see you there!

16 10 20 was made possible with the generous support of Stichting Stokroos and PrintRoom.

PrintRoom was invited to present a selection of books at Hydra, an exhibition about multitudes, connections and language by and with Phil Procter, Earnest Studio and Tom Chung, part of the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven. 

Until Sunday 30 October, open daily from 11.00 to 18.00
Albert van Abbehuis, Bilderdijklaan 19, Eindhoven

Holiday in the Archive: Interference Archive

After the NY ABF, we invited a group of publishing friends to join us at Interference Archive in Brooklyn, New York, for a new edition of our project Holiday in the Archive. 
Please email us if you would like to receive mail from the archive! 

Interference Archive contains many kinds of objects that are created as part of social movements by the participants themselves: posters, flyers, publications, zines, books, T-shirts and buttons, moving images, audio recordings, subject files, and other materials. The archive’s mission is to explore the relationship between cultural production and social movements.

Publishers who joined this Holiday in the Archive are: Other Forms (Alan Smart), The Nose (Eleanor Vonne Brown), Gloria Glitzer (Moritz Grünke, Franziska Brandt), Gold Rain (Oswaldo García), Issue Press (George Wietor), Gato Negro Ediciones (León Muñoz) and HumDrum Press (Wibke Bramesfeld, Amy Gowen).

We would like to thank Interference Archive for having us!