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Distribution Assembly East

Assembly No. 3 @ 2020年 L.A. Art Book Fair  //  Conversation — Eating Bitter as Gratitude for Hard Work: In Anticipation of Independent Publishing Practices on Slow Down

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Publishing initiative Kayfa ta's series of books that "situate themselves in the space between the technical and the reflective, the everyday and the speculative, the instructional and the intuitive, the factual and the fictional" have now traversed into the realm of the exhibition, with a series of three of their "how to" model now seeping into art spaces in Beirut, Amman and Abu Dhabi.

For each iteration of the exhibition, Display Distribute presented LIGHT LOGISTICS with the "SECOND(hand)MOUNTAIN(fortress)" imprint and its convoluted journeys to the Middle East. Dispatch HQL-304 and its documentation were presented in Beirut for "How to Reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing" at Beirut Art Center, then carried over as HQL-123 to Warehouse 421 in Abu Dhabi for "How to maneuver: Shape-shifting texts and other publishing tactics". The third installment of the exhibition introduced LIGHT LOGISTICS dispatch HQL-350 with a new collaborative packaging collected from posters from Hong Kong's anti-extradition bill movement, further protected with anti-RFID signal enabled tote bags made by artist collective nztt sewing co-op. Books and bags were hand carried from Hong Kong to Berlin, finally reaching the MMAG Foundaion in Amman, where they will remain in relay until 23 April 2020. The "How to" series of publications and exhibitions exhibitions are curated by Maha MAAMOUN and Ala YOUNIS of Kayfa Ta.

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Display Distribute LIGHT LOGISTICIAN 何穎雅 Elaine W. Ho speaking with the panel "Publishing as Artistic Practice", part of the Publishing Maneuvers Symposium (2020) at Warehouse 421, Abu Dhabi; image courtesy of Warehouse421.

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圍群  Monument of Apron

Journal

In praise of the old and new labours of networked, female work, Monument of Apron is an online notebook for collating various found projects, work processes and the beauties of a utilitarian garment known as the apron. 「圍群」 is a word play of wéiqún, or 圍裙 apron, with 群 qún (group, crowd, caboodle or gang) as a consideration of other communications across picket fences, gossip as a form of solidarity and modes of practice in the undercommons.

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“FREEDON (and on and on)” catalogue, published by Display Distribute at Women’s Art Library, Special Collections & Archives, Goldsmiths, 2019.

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目錄『CATALOGUE』No. 4 presented at Para Site as part of Bicycle Thieves curated by Hanlu Zhang [Hong Kong, July 2019]

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"Bicycle Thieves," curated by Hanlu ZHANG, takes up an interest in "the fine line between sharing and stealing" inviting speculation on diverse technological futures. With the publication of the fourth edition of 目錄『CATALOGUE』, which steals pages from the exhibition's, and with the expansion of the artist-run book couriering network LIGHT LOGISTICS to encompass the wider purvey of art handling, 展銷場 Display Distribute "parasites" both the publishing and logistical infrastructures of the exhibition to re-imagine and re-configure the artist/institutional binary.

目錄『CATALOGUE』No 4.  features Display Distribute’s latest selection of publications, including 闯 Chuang,  Himalayan Musk Rambler, and 中國胳膊 Chinese Arms, alongside special contributions from Zhang (“Towards a Future of Robotic Thieves” p. 5), Hong Kong Artist Union (“Art, Violent Money, and Autonomy” p. 119) Display Distribute’s own editorial (”Containers of Complicity” p. 21).

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『展銷場』的《目錄》是一本郵購雜誌目錄，也是一本讀者文摘和一本內容豐富的刊物，它囊括了『展銷場』支持與銷售的各類亞洲獨立出版物以及相應的特選文章。出版物的流通串聯內容。

『CATALOGUE』 is part mail-order catalogue, part reader’s digest, and part variety journal, assembling independent publications supported and distributed by Display Distribute alongside complementary texts. Content conflated with its means of circulation.

☞ Currently available at Para Site (Hong Kong), or for free download HERE

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Assembly No. 2 @ 2019年 L.A. Art Book Fair  //  ‘Friendly Fires’ Presentation — On Our Disappearance

Distribution Assembly East’s first presentation, "On Our Own Disappearance," begins with a contradiction: challenging the geopolitical framework set up for ourselves by working in the East and Southeast Asia regions. Through the small realms of independent print, the margin by which we thrive, we consider the dissipation of borders by writing some new definitions of cohabitation and alliance.

There is a contradiction at work here – in the dispersals of distribution, the gatherings of assembly... and what of the East?

The selection of publications featured at the LA Art Book Fair— some our own, some from others — have been curated on the simple premise of 'Disappearance' and what this means in the context of 1) border-defined identity politics, 2) contemporary urban sociopolitical phenomena, and/or 3) the precariousness of self-organized practices, spaces, and collectives.

Distribution Assembly East (D.A.E.) is a conversation and spontaneous convening of independent publishers, publication-making artists and distributors working in, with, and throughout the ‘East.’ This assembly  presented by 八家Bajia, 展銷場 Display Distribute, Salt Projects and 丝瓜集团 Sponge Gourd Collective.

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Sharing recent drop-pins on the elusive territory of “The Semi-Autonomous Zine” as part of Asia Art Archive’s Cata-log-in Zine programme, alongside archivists and librarians from Tate Library and Wellcome Collection.

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Shanzhai Lyric: “FREEDON (and on and on)” presented on the “Poetic Materiality Today” panel at the American Comparative Literature Conference [Georgetown, Washington DC, 2019] as part of our ongoing insertion of shanzhai lyrics into different modes of discourse, also known as “The Endless Garment” (ongoing).

Poetic Materiality Today:

In 2014, a poem titled “Crossing Over Half of China to Sleep with You” by Yu Xiuhua went viral online in China. Written by a rural woman with cerebral palsy and initially published on her blog, the poem represents a recent generation of poetic work that has developed around transformations in what a poem is physically and how readers encounter it. These poems are not always demonstrably globalized or translingual, but similar changes seem to be happening in poetry scenes, both popular and avant-garde, in many different places.

This seminar seeks to understand recent developments in the materiality of poetry: How have new media technologies changed the institutions of literature? What are the political economies of these changes? How have notions of authorship and reading practices shifted? What does it mean to read a poem? The seminar begins with an examination of the media in which poems are produced: topics might include the effects of the digital turn, transformations in poetic performance, new and shifting roles for the sinograph, poetry in films or as the subject of films, poetry on services like Wechat, Gendaishi Forum, and Twitter, historicizations of poetic mediality, or the reassertion of traditional poetic objects like the pamphlet, collection, broadside or calligraphic text. Read more

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Migrant Journal’s contribution to Artefact: 2019: Parallel Crossings includes a new iteration of supply-chain myth ZARA (Ocean No Nothing) set up as an unmoored island listening station from which listeners can tune in to acts I - III of Widow Radio Ching.

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[An advertorial for『CATALOGUE』alongside contributor Ghislaine Leung’s solo exhibition CONSTITUTION at Chisenhale gallery, London, 2019] 

On the occasion of fellow trade artist Ghislaine Leung’s solo exhibition “CONSTITUTION” at Chisenhale gallery, an advertorial featuring『CATALOGUE』, followed by a live dispatch. An advertorial is paid content that gives information about a product in the style of an editorial or objective article. 

https://chisenhale.org.uk/event/ming-lin-responds-to-ghislaine-leungs-new-commission/#2

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「표지 COVER 封面」of『CATALOGUE』No. 3 on view on the facade of the Jungnim-dong branch Woori Bank at Seoul Station, Seoul (KR). 「표지 COVER 封面」was screened daily after sunset from 5 September - 17 November, 2018. In collaboration with 吳文禮 WU Wenli. Listen to the soundtrack here.

Part of the『CATALOGUE』project by Display Distribute 展銷場, edited by KUNCI and Read-in, commissioned by Seoul Mediacity Biennale 2018.

Camera // •••  何穎雅 Elaine W. HO ••• 凌明 Ming LIN ••• 吳文禮 WU Wenli

Video Editing // 吳文禮 WU Wenli

Sound Editing // 何穎雅 Elaine W. HO

Script // Display Distribute 展銷場

Narration // Suh Won (Angela) JANG

 Translation // 강 수빈 KANG Soovin

Featuring Quotations from // ••• 《Rebel Cities》， by David HARVEY •••《The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins》， by Anna LOWENHAUPT-TSING

Additional Sound & Music // ••• Olaf HOCHHERZ ••• 池田 亮司 IKEDA Ryoji

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Feral Business Research Network [meeting, Rovereto (IT), October 2018]

Display Distribute joined the second meeting of the Feral Business Research Network, convening at the base of the Italian Alps and hosted by La Foresta, bringing together trade artists, community economists and programmers, in a session working towards generating necessary counter-materials to “queer the business plan.” Exploring among other questions of micro-practice, what else can business be, what is its language, and how can it challenge the logics of value and representation?

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《發醮》，一個閱(表)讀(演)會 「THE FERMENTATION READING SESSION」

Reading Group

攝影 photo // Adel ANDALIBI

Reading from 《語用三論：美聯論 • 順應論 • 模因論 New Developments in Pragmatics: Relevance, Adaptation and Memetics》edited by 何自然 HE Ziran and Linda HUTCHEON's 《Theory of Adaptation》, we ask: can forms of dialogue and story-making "exist independently of any embodiment in any particular signifying system or, on the contrary, it cannot be considered separately from its material mode of mediation"？

以延續『展銷場』與閱讀和知識具體化呈現有關的長期項目，展銷場的成員於是次策劃中與西五畫廊合作，2018年7月2日舉辦了集體特別閱(表)讀(演)會。讀書會將以小說和劇本為藍本，再結合以對各式劇場化敍述方式及主題的探討，體現學習、對話-行為和瀟灑神韻。《發酵》將以西五「畫廊酒吧」及展銷場の蘊釀物的形式面向公眾登場。

Continuing a long-term series of projects related to reading and embodied knowledge practice, members of Display Distribute hosted on 2 July 2018 in conjunction with C5 Art Center in Beijing a special performance reading group session on the transitions and slippages from text to moving image. Part novel/script reading, part discussion, The Fermentation Reading Session brings together elements of the C5 “Gallery Bar” brewed with our own questions on the meta of active learning, performance-dialogue and romantic comedy.

由 with 郭顥 GUO Hao、何穎雅 Elaine W. HO、焦安琪 JIAO Anqi、劉穎 Dongdong LIU、鄭子翹 paperbridgeee、曲一箴 Twist QU、楊佳霖 YANG Jialin 和 and 原曉光 Felix YUAN 參與

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『CATALOGUE』 No. 3 presented at Seoul Museum of Art as part of Mediacity Seoul 2018  [Seoul, September - November 2018]

The third edition of 『CATALOGUE』—— part mail-order catalogue, part reader’s digest, and part variety journal examining critical practices amidst a network of readers and producers from East and Southeast Asia —— unfolds  as an intensive publishing programme co-edited with Kunci (Yogyakarta) and Read-in (Utrecht) as part of 《Eu Zên》, the 2018 Mediacity Biennale in Seoul. Curated by Kyung Yong Lim.

Working from Display Distribute’s publishing station at the Seoul Museum of Art, architectures of print are explored by way of collaborative enactments of publishing as real-time event, lending a performative dimension to processes of stockpiling, editing, translating and knowledge exchange.『CATALOGUE』 No. 3 takes up mushroom as method, exploring spores and mycorrhizal thinking as a means of collaborative practice.

The「COVER」of 『CATALOGUE』No. 3, a collaboration with WU Wenli, is exhibited on the Seoul Station LED, located on the facade of the Jungnim-dong branch Woori Bank.

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15 September; all day「FRONT MATTERS」Introduction w. Display Distribute

/ 16 September; 14-16 hrs「BODY MATTERS」Chapter 2: Klub Numpang Baca Reading Group w. Kunci (RSVP required)

/ 19 September; 17-19:30 hrs「BODY MATTERS」Chapter 3: Spore, Spore, Sporadic w. Display Distribute & Kunci / 27 September; 19:30-21:30 hrs「BODY MATTERS」Translation w. Display Distribute & RAT school of ART (RSVP required) / 29 September; 10:30-13 hrs「BODY MATTERS」Chapter 5: Haunted Bookshelves w. Read-in / 29 September; 14;30-18:30 hrs「END MATTERS」Lateralising Knowledges w. Display Distribute & Read-in (RSVP required)

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『CATALOGUE』 by Display Distribute, is co-edited by Kunci and Read-in with contributions from Shu Lea CHEANG, Anna LOWENHAUPT-TSING, Jong PAIREZ, Yael van der WOUDEN, design-interventions by Moonsick GANG and translation-moderation by Jaeyong PARK (Seoul Reading Room).

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Shanzhai Lyric Open Archive [Open Archive, residency at clearview, London, August 2018]

Exploring the act of archiving as an embodied practice and process of activation, T-shirts collected from clothing markets in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong and New York are at the disposal of clearview hosts who are invited to engage the garments in acts of quotidian expression. These activities will correspond to preliminary research being carried out at the Women’s Art Library at Goldsmiths, University College of London, looking at notions of mimicry and theft. In addition, for the duration of the residency the Shanzhai Lyric Open Archive will be open for public consultation by appointment. 

☞ Press: Dazed Digital, fashion feature, August 14, 2018

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C-O-M-P-A-N-Y

Workshop

C-O-M-P-A-N-Y entity "Please Increase Noise" [workshop participants of A School, A Park, Montreal, 2018]

The C-O-M-P-A-N-Y workshop by Display Distribute takes as its starting point the format of the short-form personal biography or artist statement as both a medium and method for examining identity and shifting labour conditions within cultural practice‭. ‬Much dreaded and hated‭, ‬the bio is re-read here as a‭ ‬"hack"——a textual strategy bearing the potential to reconsider and redefine individual positions to work‭, ‬business and corporatization‭. ‬

At a moment when increasing precarity alters our relations to labour and production‭, ‬the biography as a tool for self branding‭ and self-commodification ‬is inverted as a means to expose and question existing value systems‭. ‬How can the increasing complexities of intersectional affinities nuance the relationship between individual and collective identity‭? ‬

A School, A Park, Montreal, 2018

Taking up defunct and in-between architectures of commerce——the demolition site, the underpass, the pallet, the back alley——participants of A School, A Park investigate what other forms of exchange might emerge by engaging these alter-narratives in disenfranchised spaces. Projects that might refer to or wear the shape of business instigate intimate exchanges returning, finally, to the most basic notion of what it means to be in C-O-M-P-A-N-Y——in its rudimentary form referring simply to the bringing together of bodies in their most porous, irreducible and vulnerable forms.

Workshop introductions and exchanges

C-O-M-P-A-N-Y entity "Démanagement La Capitale"

C-O-M-P-A-N-Y Radio with workshop participants on Montreal's N10.AS Radio (broadcast archived here)

Display Distribute evening presentation at A School, A Park

All images courtesy of A School, A Park.