Wednesday, 18 October 2017

foldfoldandfoldagain

another great day at Camberwell - it's that time of year within the College calendar when all is possible. A folding workshop focusing on exploring the structure of book - what more could one ask for - folding paper with thoughtful people all morning! Then a presentation exploring the possibility of book through the lenses of bookness, https://www.slideshare.net/l.bicknell/001-a-what-is-book-bookness-2016 a concept I first came across whilst in dialogue with the wonderful Ivor Robinson. 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10750258/Ivor-Robinson.html
I was helping to write the document that was to become the MA Book Art Course at Camberwell with Alex Lumley and I came across a book art module that Ivor had been running in Oxford Poly which allowed students to explore the possibility of book. He was wonderfully generous and incredibly supportive in helping to develop my thinking around the building of a course and it goes without saying sowing the seeds of my understanding of what was possible with the book. The concept of bookness was just my thing, I enjoyed the slippage of language - the space between things - not quite book but maybe more so - the essence of book..... and I have talked about it and built a career around it since then, 1990 seems a long time ago. I really enjoy coming across its use, that it is now a thing and has becoming its own idea for people to make of it what it is for them. Even though Ivor was a binder of the highest quality I am sure he would love this spreading of the word where the book is only limited by the imagination.