Indonesia at London Art Book Fair 2019 - Ways of Reading

Last month we had did a collaboration with Further Reading, a multi-format publishing platform based in Jakarta, Indonesia. This year at The London Book Fair, Indonesia was chosen as the Market Focus and to honour that Further Reading along with collaborator Dua Studio created a multi platform exhibition titled Ways of Reading. The exhibition explored reading as a three dimensional space and questioned whether reading had to be a solitary act.

To preface the exhibition, the group staged interventions during the week of the book fair around London. In iconic locations they posed in huge metallic structural garments. These interventions were then photographed and made into a publication which we printed here at Rabbits Road.

The turnover of the printing was pretty fast, with each intervention executed hours before they were printed. Each day myself and Januar (who lead the project), took on a different intervention and a different specific colour. We explored how these photographs could be translated for Risograph. Sometimes the printing sessions ran very smoothly, for example the medium blue was a joy to print. However, at other times we spent hours editing the photos so that they would look legible with florescent orange. This process was not dissimilar to how the interventions were carried out, some being more successful than others.

On the final day the group from Indonesia came to the studio and assembled the publication. In the end there were two hundred copies and an introductory brochure. Each page was a single colour but they all came together to make a brilliant and engaging publication. These were then shown at Protein Studios the following Saturday. The event included talks centring around discussions about forms of reading from Dua Studio, Further Reading, Bundschuh Architekten and many more.

It was a joy to work with Further Reading and Dua Studio and wish them all the best! Here at Rabbits Road Press, we love collaborating and printing with international artists and if you have any ideas don’t hesitate to contact us!