X-Operative Exhibition at Wysing Arts Centre / Saturday 16 November 2013, 5 – 8pm

X Marks the Bökship is setting up shop at Wysing Arts Centre for a special programme that is part exhibition, part events series and part functioning shop for artist’s books and independent publishing.

The title X-Operative is taken from an essay by Ksenia Cheinman, who uses the term to describe common places where the cultural space becomes creative, productive, commercial, domestic, and educational all at once. Using this playfully as a blueprint the exhibition includes specially commissioned artist-made display systems by Adam Burton, Sophie Demay, Rory Macbeth, Beatriz Olabarrieta and Keef Winter, each supporting a selection of publications available to read or purchase from each station. Independently produced by artists, designers and writers these books sit in relation to five separate themes illustrating the multi operations of X Marks the Bökship: reading & writing, production, performance, distribution and exchange.

Over the duration of the five weeks, each construction will become activated as the focus of a packed events programme focusing on each theme including talks, screenings, workshops, readings and performances. The events allow for an environment for exchange and study as well as action, reflection and discussion and include contributions from Anagram Books, And Public, Eleanor Vonne Brown, Adam Burton, Adam Chodzko and Rob Young, Michael Dean, Chris Evans and Will Holder, Rory Macbeth, PERSONA Journal with Melissa Gordon, Jessica Wiesner and Marina Vishmidt, The Fox with Mathew Whittington, and Lucy Woodhouse. Rebecca Jagoe will be based at Wysing Arts Centre as Bökship Writer-in-Residence for the duration of the exhibition.

Five sculptural display systems have been commissioned by artists, writers, designers and publishers to present a selection of publications, subverting and playing with how we read, write, collect knowledge and publish information. On the theme of Reading and Writing, Rory Macbeth has reproduced a set of glasses to the same prescription as Sigmund Freud that can be used to examine the stack of journals and texts placed alongside. On the theme of Production, artist and publisher Keef Winter has installed a destructive production line, books about production are shredded and reformed into concrete book blocks.

On the theme of Performance, artist Beatriz Olabarrieta imagines the scripts and publications her sculpture holds are theatrical characters, presenting them to the audience as if on stage. On the theme of Distribution, artist and publisher Adam Burton has written an essay investigating the problems of independent distribution and suggesting alternatives. Copies of his publication are being distributed from throughout the exhibition. Finally, on the theme of Exchange, designer Sophie Demay has created the centre stage of the exhibition – a reading area that also functions as a space for conversation, discussion and performance events.

Saturday 16 November 5-8pm
Preview and Launch event

5-7pm Keef Winter Lets Build Our Own Tomb, Durational Performance

6pm Introduction by Eleanor Vonne Brown

6.30-8pm Lucy Woodhouse Experimental Ink Jet, Durational Performance

Keef Winter will activate his installation, shredding books about production and reforming them into concrete book blocks throughout the evening.  Lucy Woodhouse uses printers and scanners to create live visuals and unique prints based on H.G. Wells ‘World Brain’.

Coach to the X-Operative exhibition

There is a coach traveling from the Bökship to Wysing Arts Centre near Cambridge for the opening on Saturday 16 November.

Meet at X Marks the Bökship at 3pm
Coach leaving from  Museum of Childhood, Cambridge Heath Road  at 3.15pm
Arriving back in Bethnal Green at 10pm
Cost £10 per person
Spaces for 50 people

Book a ticket here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/9256802345

Directions to Wysing
Wysing Arts Centre is located outside the village of Bourn, nine miles west of Cambridge. Fast trains leave from Kings Cross every half an hour. From Cambridge, take a taxi direct to Wysing or take a bus to Cambridge central bus station and then catch the No 18 bus from Cambridge Bus Station on Drummer Street. Buses run hourly from Cambridge at 45 minutes past the hour, Monday to Saturday.

Wysing Arts Centre
Fox Road
Bourn, Cambridge
CB23 2TX
http://www.wysingartscentre.org