WORK, HARD, TRY: A (W)reading by Rachel Lois Clapham

KALEID has just published Rachel Lois Clapham’s downloadable response toscripturacontinua, a performance series curated by Katharine Fry in March 2010 featuring new work by artists Francis Elliott, Sheila Ghelani, Jordan McKenzie and Helen Schoene

Scriptura Continua refers to the writing of late antiquity in which no inter-word spacing or punctuation was used, with no distinction between cases. As such, the task of interpreting the text fell to the reader, forced to divide the written string of letters into words. Reading aloud, meaning was only recovered through oralisation as the texts were recited over and over again.

The resulting WORK, HARD, TRY: A (W)reading by Rachel Lois Clapham links the productive literary constraint and historical practice of Scriptura Continua to a contemporary notion of writing performance. The publication takes the form of a basic downloadable PDF template and usesscripturacontinua’s open invitation to solicit future acts of reading, writing and performance.

Rachel Lois Clapham is Co-Director of Open Dialogues; a UK based collaboration that produces critical writing on and as performance.

Rachel Lois Clapham A (W)reading PDF download

How to Diagram- READERS WANTED

Karen and me

All images courtesy READERS WANTED Rachel Lois Clapham with Antje Hildebrandt

A collection of documents from READERS WANTED will be presented as part of How to DIAGRAM 11 July 2-4pm, Art Writing Studio, Laurie Baths, Goldsmiths College. In association with AntePress, The Goldsmiths Art Writing MFA and Form Content project space.

James and me

Michelle and me

READERS WANTED was an intimate (w)reading performance for two commissioned as part of Writers House (Wandle Park March 2010). In How to DIAGRAM at Goldsmiths College Rachel Lois will make public the results of her private bodily encounters with readers. Thinking through diagramming, desire and proximity she will speculate on what the documents consists of, and how.

Rachel Lois Clapham produces critical writing on and as performance with Open Dialogues and curates radical writing with In a Word. Her own practice points… punctuates movement and presses on physical gestures as text. 2010 work includes FINGER for Diagrams at Form Content, Re- a live reading at PSL Gallery and [Essaying Touch] a residency at Islington Mill.

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Details on the 2010 Art Writing MFA programme here:

MFA Art Writing present a project space including an exhibition of artworks and publications, a programme of events and a pop-up library of art writing publications. For the opening night, an experimental live publishing proposal - in collaboration with graphic designers Clare Acheson and Ken Kirton - will produce free limited edition texts to take away.

Invited guests include: Hamja Ahsan, David Berridge, Ruth Beale, Neil Chapman, Rachel Lois Clapham, Charles Danby, Jacob Farrell, Gandt, Marialaura Ghidini, Gustavo Grandal Montero, Marit Münzberg, Daniel Rourke and Francesco Pedraglio.

Thursday 8th July

6-9pm: Live experimental publishing project of limited edition texts, in collaboration with graphic designers Clare Acheson and Ken Kirton.

Friday 9th July

1-1.15pm: Julia Calver presents Nightjar, an evolving reading in three parts.

2-4pm: How to Publish

Gustavo Grandal Montero, Special Collections, Chelsea College of Art & Design, presents Artists’ Books: A Chelsea History. Jacob Farrell presents Rue Obscure Press.

Saturday 10th July

1-1.15pm: Julia Calver presents Nightjar, an evolving reading in three parts.

2-4pm: How to Art Writing

Charles Danby, guest curator at Vestfossen Kunstlaboratorium in Norway, discusses Grand National and art writing in relation to the event of exhibition.

Hamja Ahsan in conversation about Other Asias an artist-led initiative that challenges contemporary navigations of Asia as region, as potentiality, as memory, as imagination and investigation through an arena of fluid exhibitionary structures.

Sunday 11th July

1-1.15pm: Julia Calver presents Nightjar, an evolving reading in three parts.

How To Diagram

2-4pm: Presentations on the diagram as textual apparatus by David Berridge, Julia Calver, Neil Chapman, Rachel Lois Clapham and Patrick Coyle.

Monday 12th July

11-1pm: Gandt presents

2-4pm: How To Write in a Non-Native Language

Francesco Pedraglio presents his collaborative writing project Object Lessons, introducing a discussion of the practices and consequences of writing in a non-native language. Including contributions from Marit Münzberg and Marialaura Ghidini.