publications
Drawing is still writing, Nyakallo Maleke. 2023. Drawings and writing, risograph printed booklet read more
Meteorites, a book of poems by Lavendrhi Arumugam, co-published with edition~verso read more
Addressed to its intended, Erin Honeycutt and francis burger, co-published with Cutt Press read more
Light Passes, a collection of texts, images and conversations surrounding light and its varied presences across artistic practice, choreography, land, power and memory, gathered by Gretchen Blegen with contributions by Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Emese Csornai, Ana Laura Lozza & Bárbara Hang, Bettina Malcomess, Kirbie Bennett and Jamie Wanzek read more
Drawing is still writing
︎ Saturday 22 June 2024, 11 – 13:00 CAT/CET, LIVE reading/drawing/writing with artist & author Nyakallo Maleke + publisher francis burger at the Johannesburg Art Gallery & ONLINE.
Join artist and author Nyakallo Maleke and publisher francis burger for a collaborative reading, drawing, writing event prompted by the short text ‘Draw’ and the publication as a whole.
Nyakallo & francis will provide prompts, materials, and soup + coffees by Abstract Coffee Club :)
To RSVP email fmburger(at)gmail.com︎
Drawing is still writing, Nyakallo Maleke. 32 pages with loose inserts, risograph printed in an edition of 40 at Keleketla/Wits School of Arts. Single Thread sewn by Pulp Paperworks. Publication design & editing by francis burger. Published by Oriole Press in collaboration with Nyakallo Maleke. Johannesburg. 2023. ISBN 978-0-7961-3650-3
South Africa R350.00 excl. shipping.
UK & Eu €20
*To purchase email francis burger at fmburger(at)gmail.com
‘Drawing is still writing’ shares a series of drawings performed for the risograph printer over a few hot days and nights in summer 2023. The drawings were collated alongside a short text ‘Draw’, written by Maleke earlier in the year, and the prompts, notes and marks that emerged from their sandwich’ing.
South Africa R350.00 excl. shipping.
UK & Eu €20
*To purchase email francis burger at fmburger(at)gmail.com
‘Drawing is still writing’ shares a series of drawings performed for the risograph printer over a few hot days and nights in summer 2023. The drawings were collated alongside a short text ‘Draw’, written by Maleke earlier in the year, and the prompts, notes and marks that emerged from their sandwich’ing.
“Drawing has always been conversational, an outspoken friend.”
—‘Draw’, Nyakallo Maleke, 2023
A selection of spreads from ‘Drawing is still writing’, Nyakallo Maleke, 2023.
‘Drawing is still writing’ is one of many careful, specific experiments within Maleke’s ongoing practice of responsive mark-making and compilation – a growing lexicon of “adapting to spaces that refuse to change”, of re-telling, re-learning, re-imagining... of mapping, repetition, layering, and laying out... of vulnerability, and ‘learning to re...st’.
*Nyakallo Maleke is an artist, writer and cyclist from Johannesburg.
*Nyakallo Maleke is an artist, writer and cyclist from Johannesburg.
Colophon
Drawing is still writing
Nyakallo Maleke
2023
32 pages with loose inserts, risograph printed in an edition of 40.
publication design & editing by francis burger
printed at the Wits School of Arts with the RISO SF5030 acquired by Keleketla! Library and Another Roadmap Africa Cluster with additional ink drums by Wits Fine Art
Oriole Press in collaboration with Nyakallo Maleke
Johannesburg
2023
ISBN 978-0-7961-3650-3
Drawing is still writing
Nyakallo Maleke
2023
32 pages with loose inserts, risograph printed in an edition of 40.
publication design & editing by francis burger
printed at the Wits School of Arts with the RISO SF5030 acquired by Keleketla! Library and Another Roadmap Africa Cluster with additional ink drums by Wits Fine Art
Oriole Press in collaboration with Nyakallo Maleke
Johannesburg
2023
ISBN 978-0-7961-3650-3
Meteorites
︎ Available to purchase at Hopscotch Reading Room Berlin, & at edition~verso, Johannesburg, contact to order︎
Meteorites, a book of poems by Lavendhri Arumugam. Softcover, 20 pages, with 6 hand-stamped colour plates and Riso printed cover. Edition of 50. Printed in Johannesburg and Berlin. Published by Oriole Press and edition~verso, Johannesburg, 2023.
South Africa R450 (excl. shipping)*
Europe & UK €30 (excl. shipping)*
*To purchase email fmburger(at)gmail.com
Meteorites is a book of poems about childhood, curiousity, and reproach, written by writer/maker/curator Lavendhri Arumugam* – who grew up in East London and Johannesburg (South Africa) and now lives and works in London (United Kingdom).
They made an aunty of me–
busy, looking, picking, hiding
retrievable
treasures for later
—from ‘Four PM’, Lavendhri Arumugam, Meteorites, 2023
Meteorites was written in relation to Plain Furniture, a collection of writings and graphics by South African artist Peter Clarke – poetic descriptions of encounters, memories and musings from across the artists’ life in Cape Town from the mid 1930s to the 1990s – published in 1991 by Gus Ferguson’s Snail Press, Plumstead, Cape Town.
“Life is at times bitter but often pleasant”
—from ‘Bokkems and Wine’, Peter Clarke, Plain Furniture, 1991
Meteorites is illustrated with hand-stamped colour plates, printed and co-published with edition~verso.
* Lavendhri Arumugam has a Masters in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University, and was a recipient of the London Writers Awards for Narrative Non-fiction in 2021. Arumugam is presently and continuously working on a non-fiction manuscript about cricket and fatherhood. www.lavendhri.com
Colophon
Meteorites
Lavendhri Arumugam
2023
Design and illustrations by francis burger
Conceptualised and supported as a part of 'Papertrails', presented by The Independent Publishing Project with Jonah Sack at A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, 2022
Colour plates printed at edition~verso with Sara-Aimee Verity, assisted by Michaela Verity, Boitumelo Phashe, and Bradley Cloete; Inners printed by Postnet Norwood; Covers printed by Drucken3000
With thanks to Sebastian Borckenhagen, Sue Clark, Theron, Lara, and to Siddartha Lokanandi and Erin Honeycutt (Cutt Press) at Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin.
Oriole Press & edition~verso
Johannesburg
978-0-6397-9041-1
Meteorites
Lavendhri Arumugam
2023
Design and illustrations by francis burger
Conceptualised and supported as a part of 'Papertrails', presented by The Independent Publishing Project with Jonah Sack at A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, 2022
Colour plates printed at edition~verso with Sara-Aimee Verity, assisted by Michaela Verity, Boitumelo Phashe, and Bradley Cloete; Inners printed by Postnet Norwood; Covers printed by Drucken3000
With thanks to Sebastian Borckenhagen, Sue Clark, Theron, Lara, and to Siddartha Lokanandi and Erin Honeycutt (Cutt Press) at Hopscotch Reading Room, Berlin.
Oriole Press & edition~verso
Johannesburg
978-0-6397-9041-1
Light Passes
︎ Printed copies available via post from Oriole Press (Berlin & Johannesburg) or at Hopscotch Reading Room (Berlin)︎
︎ An audio version of the publication, with spoken transcripts by each contributor and a downloadable pdf, is available on bandcamp HIGHLY RECOMMENDED ︎
Light Passes, initiated and gathered by Gretchen Blegen. Softcover, 95 pages. Edition of 40. Digitally printed in Berlin on an HP Indigo 7000 by AusDruck. Published by Oriole Press and Gretchen Blegen, 2023.
South Africa R500 (excl. shipping)*
Europe & UK €25 (excl. shipping)*
*To purchase email fmburger(at)gmail.com
Light Passes is an eclectic collection of texts, images and conversations surrounding light and its varied presences across artistic practice, choreography, land, power and memory.
Light Passes was initiated and gathered by transdisciplinary artist Gretchen Blegen (Berlin), and began as a series of exchanges with artist and writer Bettina Malcomess. The publication expanded across 2022 with collaborative contributions by choreographer Zwoisy Mears-Clarke (Rösrath) and lighting designer Emese Csornai (Berlin), performing artist duo Ana Laura Lozza & Bárbara Hang (Berlin and Buenos Aires), artist and writer Bettina Malcomess (Johannesburg), print and radio journalists Kirbie Bennett and Jamie Wanzek (Durango). Light Passes was produced in collaboration with Oriole Press.
“The more I work with light in performance and dance, the more I associate light with something both ephemeral and contextual. Light is a synonym for perception, grounded in its own histories and relationalities. I feel light as a limitless vocabulary of possibilities that reaches well beyond the task of making things visible or creating an effect. It digs deep into psychosomatic body memories of place and experience, warmth and sensation
...
Through the leaves, through the window to the page. A shimmer of possibilities in seemingly impossible states. 144 years after the invention of the light bulb. A glitch in the social order after sundown. A remembrance of the circadian rhythm. Light as it passes through, as it flows”
—from Light Passes, Prologue, Gretchen Blegen 2023
“Ask the dust about stories held in the light. Ask the dust about whispers in the shadows. Ask the dust where stories go in that refracted light of a city transforming its identity
[…]
for us, the light sparkles in bittersweet tones through archival documents and photographs of razed neighborhoods from the untold past. It sparkles in the voices of people who once called those places home”
—from Light and space as living history of a magic city, Kirbie Bennett and Jamie Wanzek, p44
“A sudden image of a ghostly figure moving slowly in the flames of my lens, in a room containing what looked like an ancient electrical transformer, all valves and thread-worn wires. Some fictional appearance escaping at the edge of the frame”
—from The Void, Bettina Malcomess, p58
“There are two phrases I repeat in all the press texts of non-visual dance pieces and the opening remarks of the performance evening: “completely dark” and “pitch-black”. To achieve that darkness is work. Only when finding that kind of darkness became a desire, did I start to notice the red LED in the fire alarm, the space in between doors and the wall where the hinges lie, the bending of light coming from street lamps through the window and up and around the theater curtain and other tiny cracks in the institutional walls. Sometimes that process of finding and covering those sources of light makes me feel as if the construction of functionality attempts to disown darkness from the language of light: the fire alarms upstage left and downstage right are working, their red LEDs are on; the breaker panel on the wall in the theater room near the tech booth shows electricity is flowing, its green LEDs are on; and when it is not flowing, the lights change to red.
[...]
So does that mean darkness is proposed as a space of dysfunctionality?
Is it a proposition of the impossibility of working without light, or rather without the possibility of sight?
What kind of limiter of imagination is that?”
—from Thoughts on non-visual dance performances by Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Emese Csornai, p69
“Someone trying to read while the lights go on AND OFF
Eyes at work
Conversations on satellites
Things to touch in darkness
Eyes looking with lids shut
Someone always looking through the camera
Always old technology devices laying around
Five people in the forest at night
Four people on a sofa looking at a wall petting objects on their laps
Two fishes and several rats
Hands feeling eyeballs”
—from Fade into Rhythm by Ana Laura Lozza & Bárbara Hang, p81
Colophon
Light Passes
Initiated and gathered by Gretchen Blegen
Contributions by Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Emese Csornai, Ana Laura Lozza & Bárbara Hang, Bettina Malcomess, Kirbie Bennett and Jamie Wanzek
Publication designed by Francis Burger
95p, printed by AusDruck, Berlin, on HP Indigo 7000, with trimmed acetate and colour tissue paper inserts, two folded letters, and a hand written note.
Additional editing by Mars Dietz, Zinzi Buchanan, Bettina Malcomess
Accessibility consultation by Quiplash
Post sound production and audio mastering by Lane Hots
Published by Oriole Press in collaboration with Gretchen Blegen
CC-BY-ND
2023
ISBN 978-0-7961-1727-4
Light Passes was made possible through the #TakeCare and #TakeHeart research grants from the Performing Arts Fund financed by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR and BACKBONE Berlin.
Audio publication and digital download at www.lightpasses.bandcamp.com
Light Passes
Initiated and gathered by Gretchen Blegen
Contributions by Zwoisy Mears-Clarke and Emese Csornai, Ana Laura Lozza & Bárbara Hang, Bettina Malcomess, Kirbie Bennett and Jamie Wanzek
Publication designed by Francis Burger
95p, printed by AusDruck, Berlin, on HP Indigo 7000, with trimmed acetate and colour tissue paper inserts, two folded letters, and a hand written note.
Additional editing by Mars Dietz, Zinzi Buchanan, Bettina Malcomess
Accessibility consultation by Quiplash
Post sound production and audio mastering by Lane Hots
Published by Oriole Press in collaboration with Gretchen Blegen
CC-BY-ND
2023
ISBN 978-0-7961-1727-4
Light Passes was made possible through the #TakeCare and #TakeHeart research grants from the Performing Arts Fund financed by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media within the framework of NEUSTART KULTUR and BACKBONE Berlin.
Audio publication and digital download at www.lightpasses.bandcamp.com
Addressed to its intended
︎ Available in Johannesburg from @oriole.press and from Cutt Press @hopscotchreadingroom in Berlin + @missreadberlin on September 22nd - 24th, @etceteras_porto on October 5th - 7th & @tokyoartbookfair on November 22nd -25th︎
Addressed to its intended, texts and images by Erin Honeycutt and francis burger. 15 pages and cut flower in printed envelope, Risograph printed in burgundy ink. Edition of 50. Printed at Cutt Press, Kurfürstenstraße. Published by Oriole Press and Cutt Press, Berlin, 2023.
South Africa R250 (excl. shipping)*
Europe & UK €15 (excl. shipping)*
*To purchase email fmburger(at)gmail.com
Addressed to its intended collects written and graphic negotiations of thresholds and bodily announcements – of skin, paper, 'the book', bodies, speaking, letters, undergrowth.
Featuring the rough tongue of a holy ghost cat, a island cemetery, a few circling dogs, and many textures gathered on a lino-roller, from the garden of an extended family home in Västra Götalands county in Sweden.
...if only there was an island cat on this Cemetery island who would walk up to me and with its scruffy holy tongue lick a piece of me, that would be my skin, and there, skin to tongue, living with the living, creature to creature, speech to touch, inner surface to outer surface, we would truly speak.
—‘Skin diaries’, in ‘Addressed to its intended’, by Erin Honeycutt and francis burger, 2023.
Edition of 50, risograph printed in burgundy ink on various materials and bound by an envelope. Texts and images by Erin Honeycutt and francis burger, with excerpts from Italo Calvino, José Saramago, and a notebook drawing by Sara-Aimee Verity.
no wonder
how mice
eat the glue
off paper, read
with their teeth
—from ‘no wonder’, in ‘Addressed to its intended’, Erin Honeycutt and francis burger, 2023
Colophon
Addressed to its intended
Erin Honeycutt and francis burger
2023
15 loose pages with folded elements and cut flower shape in brown tissue paper, green smiley face sticker, and an A6 piece of acetate, bound in a printed C5 envelope.
Risograph printed in Berlin at Cutt Press, Kurfürstenstraße
Edition of 50
Published by Oriole Press and Cutt Press
Berlin
Addressed to its intended
Erin Honeycutt and francis burger
2023
15 loose pages with folded elements and cut flower shape in brown tissue paper, green smiley face sticker, and an A6 piece of acetate, bound in a printed C5 envelope.
Risograph printed in Berlin at Cutt Press, Kurfürstenstraße
Edition of 50
Published by Oriole Press and Cutt Press
Berlin