Kevin Hunt of The Royal Standard in Liverpool went around the world recently with a bag sized exhibition of artists’ work. Kevin exhibited, traded, donated with / to galleries and artists’ and their studios around the world, bringing the documentation back to Liverpool to exhibit at the Bluecoat as part of their Global Studio event. My drawing returned to Liverpool to be exhibited, parcelled and sent to it’s new owner, Cornelia Erdmann.

I have a few drawings scattered through this book. It’s a wedge of a book – quite nice as a visual reference.

Just listening to some tech house from Australia. Nice change from Laura Marling.

Zine Soup is an excellent book published by TTC Gallery. It has a screen printed cover and comes in a numbered run of 1000. It documents the world’s contemporary zine culture, makers and publishers.

I was asked to take part in Luis Mendonça‘s project this year. It’s a really nicely produced desktop diary with an exhibition in Porto that happened in January 2010. We met Luis at my lecture at the University of Arts in Porto last summer, where he gave Oscar a load of signed books / art!

I’ve had a pile of books and things on my desk for months. Today is the first chance I’ve had to document and post them. Here they are one-by-one. First was Mark Wigan’s Dictionary of Illustration, published by AVA. I was filed under ‘wit’. Make your own mind up on that.

I was asked to participate in Thanks For Sharing, a zine exhibition in Leipzig. China Zine was exhibited.

Dauer: 8. bis 30. Mai 2010

Öffnungszeiten: Do – So von 13-19 Uhr

Eröffnung: 7. Mai 2010, 19 Uhr,
mit Performance der Ladies of the Press*

Symposium: 8. Mai 2010, ab 13 Uhr

I was invited to take part in the 2010 OK Festival in The Netherlands, followed by the Graphic Design Festival Breda. China Zine was exhibited along with many other independently published titles from around the world.

“O.K. Festival is the first event in the Netherlands that offers a survey of independent magazines from all over the world. Under the title ‘Welcome Magazines’ O.K. Festival presents the energy and the visual explosion of strange, beautiful and original magazines.

One by one they present an answer to the uniformity of the mass media. The printed media are falling victim to increasingly strict formats. Sales figures reign. In the gaping hole they leave behind the independent magazine manifests itself. Everything that is excluded by the mainstream media finds its place here. In this sense, the independent magazine offers a sanctuary to designers, illustrators and writers. It is at times defiant and headstrong, but always brimming with energy and playfulness. Readers from across the world are increasingly drawn to its versatility, originality and creativity. O.K. Festival offers an insight into the full spectrum of independent magazines through various activities.

”

I was asked by Lomography to take part in the London Gallery exhibition. They sent me a Diana F+ medium format camera which I had to customise. No theme. I wanted to build a bird box around it. That failed. After the camera had been knocked around whilst trying to turn it into a birdhouse, Joanne and I decided it needed wrapping up.

Image courtesy of Lomography.