werkboek is a collaborative project that combines the playful, impulsive, and detail-oriented qualities of both An Onghena (BE, 1992) and Jivan van der Ende’s (NL, 1993) artistic practices.
“You are holding this publication in your hands. After opening its cover, you browse through the pages. Are you aware of its weight, the sturdiness of the paper, the different feel of the smooth RISO? The publication is a landscape that the artists have created for you, and by becoming both a reader and a spectator, you are invited to go for a walk through the presented scenery. You are the traveler, the wanderer, the discoverer, moving through the pages out of which this landscape is built. (…)” — Poot, Joyce, Hands Turning Pages (touching me, touching you), 2021. Textual contribution by Joyce Poot in werkboek.
The publication’s layers of images, unique folds, rips and painted handprints indicate to the ongoing status of the werkboek project. Since its first print date, October 2021, the project grew with a performative extension which entails a metal structure and a made-to-measure furniture set that is used by the artists to demonstrate the folding and ripping of the publication.
From the first performance held on Oct 14th 2021, in Ein Buch Haus Berlin, the performative extension developed into a audio visual installation: a webcam records the actions by the artists which are than projected onto a wall, allowing the audience an intimate view on the hands of the artists. Besides the publication, various performances and installations, the artists developed a series of unique RISO printed editions.
werkboek
by An Onghena & Jivan van der Ende
With a textual contribution Joyce Poot
Publisher kabinet.studio, Antwerpen
first print 2021, second print 2022
48p, RISO, hand painted + folded
50 editions + 10 AP (2021)
75 editions + 10 AP (2022)
prize 50 euro
ISBN 9789464447156
