‘(from the) elsewhere’
studies on paper
April 2022 - January 2023
Jacob Carter & Poppy Jones-Little
from past hands handling
dislodged fingerprints
buried, soaked, embedded
in our place.
In April 2022 we formed a cooperative practice, rooted in a cycle of giving and receiving. Choosing to work exclusively on A1 pieces of paper, we posted these back-and-forth, embracing the slowness and delay inherent within mail art practices. Folding and unfolding, welcoming the creases, holes, stains - the marks of transference. We spoke frequently, in flurries of emails and direct messages, gradually building an understanding of how the papers were shifting into different states, taking on new forms and taking up different spaces. Just as the papers entered into different spaces, we too were constantly repositioning ourselves; finding new routes for making, and new ways of thinking.
This process has culminated in this digital publication which consists of scans, ledgers, email correspondence and open ended thoughts.
To view our publication, please click here.
'By using methods of collaborative practice alongside slow movements and mail art as a research methodology, this contextual statement explores how cooperative practice can occupy the intersection between physical and digital spaces to find new ways of working with materials (Reed, 2019). Our focus on materiality involves 'processes of deformation and transformation', pushing the boundaries of a material through various manipulations; the time spent working on (thinking through, and playing with) a material allows for a greater appreciation of its physical properties (Delueze and Guattari, 2015, p.38). Steadily attuning to the material as a collective allows for a radical closeness, demonstrating how cooperative and process driven practices can extend the boundaries of both individualism and materiality, pushing both contributor and work into new, more generative spaces. By referring to historical examples of mail art, as well as theories on collaboration, we aim to add to this existing knowledge through a new lens of slowness.'
To read our contextual statement, please click here.