A Brief History of Nesting
in art+reading magazine Issue 3
I’m delighted to be included in evolve, the third issue of art+reading, @artsletterspress, a project of Toronto-based artists Jenn Law and Penelope Stewart. This issue 3 takes the metaphor of the garden as a spring board for engaging the multifaceted material ways we instigate, respond, and adapt to change.
My contribution involved a collaboration with a bird, or rather with a bird’s nest.
I started noticing many nests, particularly in the winter after the leaves had fallen.
The area where I walked was initially a treeless plot of land. Every year for the past 15 years, I have added a few thousand saplings and bare stick-roots. Slowly the sticks grew to the point of providing shelter for a few birds. And as more trees thrived, more nests were visible in the winter.
This is the resulting project.
Read the article onsite here
art + reading Journal, Issue 3: Evolve
“Pocket Globe”, Jenn Law, 2020
art + reading
A JOURNAL OF READING AND MAKING
AN EXPERIMENTAL PUBLISHING PLATFORM
“evolve”, issue 3, 2021
To publish is to make public, and with this new issue we are reimagining the potential for creative and interactive art making and publishing. Join us to view “evolve” the new curated series on Instagram @artsletterspress, featuring material interventions, multi-platform conversations, process videos and reflections, time-based installations, walkabouts, sound projects, poetic experiments, hyperlinks, and other creative engagements.
EVOLVE ON INSTAGRAM @artsletterspress
Still from video “Project Incognito”, Nicole Small, 2021
Focusing on adaptive material strategies and generative processes, we will feature a series of 20 weeklong artist projects from May to December 2021 utilizing Instagram as a creative platform. This will be followed by a new interactive digital publication. We envision the publication not as a catalogue, but rather as an extension of the curatorial project exploring a new format, processes, spin offs and the successes and failures. And for those like us that love the object we will also be publishing a printed book. As part of the continued conversation, we will be hosting numerous online live stream digital performances and or talks, open zoom panels, and online reading groups.
“slow time (birch and snow)”, Instagram post “what are we reading?”, Andrew Testa, 2021
We have curated artists from across Canada, and have invited several artists and creative professionals from Ireland, the UK, the United States, New Zealand, and South Africa.
Artists include Mary Anne Barkhouse (ON), Mel Beaulieu (NB), Millie Chen and Warren Quigley (ON), Maralynn Cherry (ON), Derek Coulombe (ON), Linda Duvall (SK), Stephen Hobbs (Ireland, South Africa), Doug Guildford (NS), Dyan Marie (BC), Lauren Nurse (ON), Nicole Seisler (US), Nicole Small (QC), Ruth Rosengarten (UK), Marion Wassenaar (New Zealand), Johanne Zits (ON).
Arts + Letters Press, established in 2017 by artists Jenn Law and Penelope Stewart, is an independent, not-for-profit publishing platform. As a duo we sought to create this project as an artistic gesture that draws on our interests of ‘reading as a material practice’. The vision from the beginning was to create an International platform that would expand the field of publishing, fostering multi-format conversations, artistic projects, exhibitions, performances, and screenings linking the analogue with the virtual. Our first foray into building the foundation for this platform was to create the International serial publication art + reading. The journal aims at examining the relationship between reading and making with spin offs that animate conversations and art projects.
Accessible
For further information please contact Arts + Letters Press:
admin@artsandletterspress.com
T: 647.880.0438