The Respond Project is a curatorial collaboration by artist Julie Johnstone and artists’ book collector Maria White.
During the 2020 lockdown, we began a two-person response email exchange, each responding to the other’s choice of book work (chosen from the world of artists’ books and art publishing), creating an ongoing linked ‘book chain’. The activity proved a lively and rewarding process that has enabled us to discover and share new books, rediscover known titles, to delve into our collections, and to see the works in new ways. The connections can be surprising and enlightening.
Exploring artists’ books is an experience of holding, touching, seeing, thinking. The reader experiences many things, sensory, emotional and intellectual. It was fascinating to see how connections are made between books, particularly during this time when we cannot meet in person.
respond project at babe
For the BABE (Bristol Artists Books Event) 2021 ‘lost weekend’ in April we organised a ‘respond’ curatorial chain involving a group of twelve artists, curators, collectors and librarians who each responded in turn to an artists’ book, creating a unique chain of responses. One person responding with one book per day, with just 24 hours to make their choice.
You can catch up on the daily chain of this curatorial experiment on Instagram @respondproject or on Twitter using #BABEartistsbooksRESPOND
respond project at small publishers fair
During the Online Small Publishers Fair in November/December 2021 we will again conduct a Respond Project.
This time we intend not to create a ‘book chain’, but to spark a book cloud or starburst… At weekly intervals during the digital fair Julie & Maria will post a book on the Essence Press Twitter feed @essencepress. Anyone who would like to participate can then add to the thread their choice of book that they feel ‘connects’ with that original book.
The project will begin on Monday 15 November 2021.
Follow the project with the hashtag #SPFbooksRESPOND
Some guidelines for taking part:
- Post an image, or more than one image, of the book you have chosen.
- Include the name of the artist/writer/publisher as relevant. Use their Twitter names if you can, or add a website address.
- If you like, add a brief sentence describing why you made the selection and what your ‘connection’ is. Why have you chosen this book to respond to the starting book? Try to keep all this to one tweet.
- Your response or connection could be prompted by many different things: intellectual, conceptual, sensual, emotional, the use of the space of the page, the materiality of the work, typography, colour, subject matter, the use of a word, the title, the layout of words or image, emotions aroused, timeframes, geography, literary and visual references, whatever you choose. The project is about the many different ways connections can be found between books, and these can be obvious, subliminal or personal.
- Try not to respond with one of your own books. But it can perhaps be one you have published.
- This project will embrace all forms and genres, matching the range of forms found at the Small Publishers Fair.
Sample suggested tweet:
My connecting book for #Bk1 #SPFbooksRESPOND is [Title] by [Artist/Author] publ [publisher] because [optional]….
We look forward to your participation in what we hope will be a fun and enlightening process of discovering how books by different makers and publishers interconnect and interact.