NOWs: Display Distribute presents Light Logistics

17 July 2019 - 23 April 2020 / Nows

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.

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, itinerant research inquiry and artist hydra Display Distribute presented its LIGHT LOGISTICS project with the “SECOND(hand)MOUNTAIN(fortress)” imprint of bootleg books and their 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 Foundation 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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Detail, installation view, LIGHT LOGISTICS: HQL-304, from “How to Reappear: Through the quivering leaves of independent publishing”; image courtesy of Beirut Art Center.