MAYDAY ROOMS
Pamphlet Series

MayDay Rooms, London, UK, is an archive and social space set up as a repository and resource for the documentation of post ’68 libertarian social movements and cultural formations, predominantly those pertaining to employment and labour issues, involving largely autonomous, non-unionised groups.

SecMoCo were more than pleased to be invited to establish the identity, series style, and design for MayDay Rooms Pamphlets- a series bringing together reproductions of documents from their archive and beyond, along with critical reflections on their contemporary relevance. The first issue in the series focuses on histories of activist film and photography in the 1970s.

First edition published in 2121 by MayDay Rooms; distributed by PM Press Ltd; 184pp; 210×148 mm; approx 92 B&W images; 1-colour soft cover.

More on MayDayRooms:
It is an active repository: existing not to close off the information it stores, or merely preserve historical documentation for posterity, but to connect it with contemporary political struggles, aiming to use this historical material to have effects in todays lived social context. Any visitor with any interest is given a chance to study the material held there at first hand, with complete open access. Perhaps uniquely, the material held is not catalogued by name or even date– you find you way through it via specific movements or publication titles (if these titles exist).

It is also a social space: regular workshops are held on selected aspects of the material in the collection. There is a reading room and a screening room, which are also made available for political organising, hosting talks, lectures, screenings, music events, book launches, or to promote radical self-education to unfunded groups. Office space is provided within the building to like-minded projects, and they also host Mayday Radio from the premises.

Beyond the stored material at MayDay itself, there exists the ‘Leftovers’ project. This strand of their activism (made in collaboration with 2620 in Berlin) seeks to provide a digital resource platform and educational resource facilitating the spread of archived ephemera from many resistance campaigns, radical movements and cultural struggles. Described as a ‘non-hierarchical searchable database’, it is an attempt to open up and disseminate many and various archives of dissent under a creative commons licence, and attempts to scrutinise and make connections between materials often hard to find or suppressed, and work towards creating distributed archives.
See: https://leftove.rs/

THAO NGUYEN PHAN
Tate St Ives

For the first large scale museum exhibition in the UK of the work of Thao Nguyen Phan, SecMoCo were approached by Giles Jackson at Tate St Ives, UK, to design the accompanying publication, bringing together documentation of existing bodies of work in painting, sculpture, moving image and sound.

First edition published by Tate St Ives, UK, 2022, on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Thao Nguyen Phan’, Tate St Ives, 5 February – 2 May 2022.
Curated by Anne Barlow (Director Tate St Ives), and Giles Jackson (Assistant Curator). Editor: Giles Jackson; 64pp; 210x148mm; 36 2-colour and 4 black & white images; single colour softcover with open binding plus 2-colour dustjacket. Texts by Anne Barlow, Joan Joanas, Thao Nguyen Phan, Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran and Pen Sereypagna.

JOAN PUBLISHING
Identity & series design

SecMoCo were invited by the artist editors Rachael Cattle and John Hughes to devise the identity and series design for JOAN, a new publishing project focusing on contemporary interdisciplinary writing supporting feminist, queer, and idiosyncratic voices, and innovative fictions. The design has expanded and adapted to include a collaborations imprint JOAN X (image no.10 above).

To date JOAN has published the work of Jenna Collins, Karoline Lange, Lucie McLaughlin, Sam Cottington, Zara Joan Miller, Volker Eichelmann, Paul Becker and Joanna Walsh

Published by JOAN, London, UK; series 1 launched 2021. 182 mm x 128 mm + 90 mm flaps; black & white/colour images; paperback. Printed digitally by P2D Westoning, UK.

Stockists include Donlon Books, ICA Bookshop, Cafe OTO, Broadway Books and TACO!, London; Desperate Literature, Madrid; Good Press, Glasgow.

joanpublishing.org
joanpublishing@gmail.com

I AIN’T THE NOING UV IT…
Bergen Kunsthall, Norway

I AIN’T THE NOING UV IT I’M JUS ONLE THE SHOWING UV IT

First edition published by Bergen Kunsthall, Norway, 2017, on the occasion of the exhibitions ‘The Noing Uv It’, Bergen Kunsthall, 9 January – 15 February 2015 and ‘The Showing Uv It’, Simon Ling, Bergen Kunsthall, 27 February – 5 April 2015. Curated by Martin Clark and Steven Claydon. Editors: Martin Clark, Steven Claydon; 230pp; 230x236mm; 148 images; 2-colour soft cover with embossing. Texts by Martin Clark, Steven Claydon, Timothy Morton, Martin Herbert, Russell Hoban and Martin Westwood.

This was a treat; SecMoCo had the opportunity to work with Martin Clark and Steven Claydon again on the documentation for an exhibition, the themes and implications of which both had been formulating and discussing for a number of years.The design itself saw many changes, with on-going conceptual and formal reappraisal, ending up with a rigorous, thorough-going, appropriate solution.

From the gallery:
‘The Noing Uv It’ is an exhibition about objects and their image, matter and its memory, and the revealed and concealed nature of “things.” Addressing the possibility of a latent primitive consciousness in materials, it includes work by over 30 international artists, as well as a number of other objects, technologies and artefacts.

Curated by Martin Clark and Steven Claydon.
Artists: Michael Dean, Trisha Donnelly, Alex Dordoy, Michaela Eichwald, European Space Agency, Cerith Wyn Evans, Florian Hecker, Roger Hiorns, Russell Hoban, Yngve Holen, Jenny Holzer, Richard Hughes, IBM, Edward Ihnatowicz, Mark Leckey, Simon Ling, Sarah Lucas, Allan McCollum, Robert Morris, Jean-Luc Moulène, Matt Mullican, David Musgrave, Seth Price, Magali Reus, Hannah Sawtell, Paul Sietsema, Michael E. Smith, Haim Steinbach, Rudolf Stingel, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel, James Welling, Martin Westwood, Bill Woodrow.

SETTLEMENTS
David Spero

It was an absolute pleasure to work intensely over a long period with one of the UK’s foremost photographers David Spero, on a book that not only showcases fine examples of his work, but is also a vitally important historical document and resource.

Photographs by David Spero, design: David Spero and SecMoCo. First edition published by David Spero, UK, 2018; edited, and with texts by, David Spero and other contributors; 290x240mm; 256pp; 148 4-color images; casebound with 4-colour dust jacket. Printing, binding, scanning and pre-press: Henry Ling Ltd at the Dorset Press, Dorchester. Scanned from C-type analogue prints.

From the afterword:
[…] To acknowledge the structures and ways of living depicted by the images in this book, and to allow them space to exist, prompts questions about values and modes of living and their environmental impact that many would rather ignore. The threat of human impact on the planet is preferably denied, in order to maintain a consumer utopia with its comforting illusions of limitless consumption. To those like myself who are inspired by these dwellings and the way of life they embody, the images suggest a comity with nature that seeks to create a future in which human beings are a complementary part of the natural landscape within a modern context. A future where human dwelling
is once again more integrated and in harmony with the planet’s ecosystem.

For more information: www.davidspero.co.uk

ARTWORDS
Identity: print and digital

Working closely with the informed and discriminating Ben Hillwood-Harris, SecMoCo has developed a lasting identity for Artwords, perhaps THE go-to outlet in London for all print pertaining to contemporary visual culture. The work carried out includes brand application across various media including shop signage, advertisements, stationery, bags, publicity material, giftwrap and also book designs for Artwords Press (Documenta 11 by Matthew Arnatt and Matthew Collings; A Prague Night by Pavel Pepperstein).

The brand was further extended with the design of the Artwords website incorporating full e-commerce (www.artwords.co.uk).

Shopfront photograph: Coleen C. [ @yelpColleenC ]

HILARY LLOYD
Kunstmuseum, Basel

This publication represents the first monograph on the work of the Turner Prize nominated British artist. Designed to accompany her solo exhibition at the Kunstmuseum, Basel and the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead.

First published by Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel, Switzerland, 2012; edited, and with a foreword by, Nikola Dietrich; texts by Kirsty Bell, Sabeth Buchmann and Pablo Lafuente; 260 x 200 mm; 216 pp; 138 color images; softcover with open binding, front flap incorporating a dual language booklet for texts (German and English).

After many discussions with the artist around how work such as hers may be adequately represented on the printed page, the opportunity arose to carry this out through the kind auspices of Nikola Dietrich at the Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel.

The publication was to accompany the exhibition, but from the outset the motivation was to create a stand alone publication. Although any desire to provide an ‘equivalent’ to the work via the book would be clearly misguided, through the structuring and division of aesthetic content, distribution of the combination of differing papers, semi-wayward cropping of the images, concealing/intrusion of the captions, and finally the nearly-fragile collating, binding and finishing, the finished object might hopefully go some way to reflecting the spirit of the artist’s lightness of touch, conceptual rigour and approach to image making (or rather, lived experience and its representation through images).

Exhibition context (from the gallery press release): “The furtive eye of Lloyd’s camera records scenes of urban life, among other objects, illuminating the modern city as a site of voyeurism, fetishism, and sexual ambivalence. People engaged in everyday rituals and routine gestures of self-projection draw the artist’s interest, as do architecture, advertising, and the play of lighting effects on different surfaces. […]The selective gaze paints a picture of urban fascination permeated by a dynamic choreography of static and moving sequences. Such effects of perception fused in pictorial montages are most obviously achieved by virtue of mirror reflections, split screens, and rotation […]. In some instances, the viewer cannot infer the material reality of the surfaces. […] They are reduced to pure surface and materiality. Yet Lloyd’s practice is not limited to the filmed image; the installation, with monitors, flat screens, and projectors elegantly and meticulously set out in the room, also acquires a strong presence. The visitor is inevitably confronted not only with the pictures, but also with their manifestation”.

SANDWICH
A series of discursive pamphlets

First published in 2001, this experimental series pursued a design-led conjunction of art and theory. Contributors included philosophers, artists, and artist-writers, and sought to operate at the constantly shifting point between the two poles of popular ‘take-up’, and academic reflection.

Where academic writing may put a break on art and its concepts, in the popular realm the same ideas can circulate quite freely. If anything they are thereby accelerated, propelling thought at greater velocity. To provide a new, faster, and looser form of print communication Sandwich showcased commissioned writing and art from contemporary theorists and practitioners that were conceptual and reflective but could be accessed in a popular format, following the pamphlet/chapbook tradition.

As such it was hoped it may push, from both ends, a redirection of what writing about art and aesthetics might be. To this end, Sandwich attempted to harness the effective power of the popular through both content and form.

Each issue consisted of 1xA2 sheet, folding down to A6, with 2x cover boards affixed to the top and bottom of the folded sheet.
-A2 Sheet front: x2 commissioned texts plus 1x commissioned artwork, the latter ‘sandwiched’ between the former.
-A2 Sheet reverse: full size poster, commissioned image/text project

• Issue 0 (Pilot issue), Autumn 2001: Mystic Materialism for Bored Aesthetes
Text a: The Song of The Norias Alphonso Lingis; Text b: Year Zero Jake Chapman
Artists project: Ovals Simon Bill; broadsheet poster/text: Bauhaus Yoga Paulina Olowska
Font: Univers; colour: PAN 032C (red)

• Issue 1, Autumn 2004: The Science of the Becoming of Matter
Text a: The Language of Insects Nigel Cooke; Text b: Abstract Sex, an extract Luciana Parisi
Artists project: Fungi Kingdom Emanations Alison Gill; broadsheet poster/text: Compliance Aya Ben Ron
Font: Optima; colour: PAN 301C (blue)

Mainly for economic reasons only two issues of Sandwich were generated, but as an effect of the distribution/circulation of those issues I was approached in 2011 by the artist Brian Chalkley to produce another issue as the accompanying publication for his exhibition at the Horst Schuler Galerie, in Dusseldorf, Germany. I used this as an opportunity to test the formal flexibility and durable potential of the format.

• Issue 2, Autumn 2011: Brian Chalkley: Career Girls
Artists project: Career Girls Brian Chalkley; broadsheet poster/text: Career Girls Brian Chalkley
Font: Melior; colour: C0/M55/Y100/K0 (orange)

Technical information
Published in editions of 1000 copies, by SecMoCo, London, UK; edited by Simon Josebury (issues 0 & 1), Simon Josebury, Jake Chapman and Suhail Malik (issue 1); texts and images: various contributors; size: as above; stock: 90/400gsm Chromolux, shrink wrapped; printed by Furnival Press, London (issue 0), Aldgate Press, London (issue 1), Calverts, London (issue 2).
[NB: the 2x separate cover boards, for front and back, used for issue 0 was changed to 1x cover incorporating front and back, with a spine, for issue 1]

The first issue was included in the book NoBrief: Graphic Designer’s Personal Projects (RotoVison, 2002). Selected and edited by John O’Reilly, his commentary within provides a more than decent account of the form and content:‘This art pamphlet opens up to a full poster. On one side there is an image of a work by Paulina Olowska called ‘Bauhaus Yoga’, with an essay by her in the bottom-left-hand corner, which is the back of the pamphlet.The cardboard cover is in the top-right-hand corner, hence the title ‘Sandwich’. The other side contains, among other items, an essay called ‘Meatphysics’ by artist Jake Chapman.This is the first issue of Sandwich and is as much an object in itself as a forum for artists and writers. Designer Simon Josebury’s work for London’s Cabinet gallery has meant that this pamphlet has a unique perspective that is both highly intellectual and raw’.

Testing
Sandwich existed as a journal but also as a pamphlet/broadsheet/poster, a formally delimited space, but one with infinite potential, where text and image could combine to generate new meanings.

PIERRE MOLINIER
Cabinet

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A boxed edition containing a selection of reproductions of, and writings about, the work of Pierre Molinier.

First published in a limited edition, in 1993, by Cabinet, UK. Edited by Martin McGowan and Andrew Wheatley; texts by various contributors; blind embossed cloth bound box containing: A3 poster/broadsheet, B&W, double-sidedand; A6 postcard– B&W, double-sided; A4 text pages– various coloured stock.

Design by SecMoCo, produced along with the founders of Cabinet.

CABINET
Edition, publicity material

SecMoCo worked on various design elements for the aesthetic and intellectual powerhouse that is Cabinet on many of their early projects and exhibitions. Here is a selection of publicity material for various artists, and an edition (Pierre Molinier), from that period.

For more on this site on orphan drift and Pierre Molinier go to:
http://www.secmoco.com/index.php/orphan-drift/
http://www.secmoco.com/index.php/pierre-molinier/