KAI KAMI KABI + LIMITED EDITION + SEA-SHELL BACTERIA SPIRIT + LIMITED EDITION +
LESSONS OF DARKNESS, Part 1
Atlas Studio
«Pitch Dark & Glossy…this publication demands active reading. Its images are printed in clear varnish on black-printed stone paper; the reader must continually adjust their viewpoint in order to discern them.»
LESSONS OF DARKNESS, Part 1
Atlas Studio
Ed. by Martin Andereggen, Claudio Gasser and Jonas Wandeler, offset printed on stone paper, 34 × 48 cm, 24 pages, 35 varnished plates, numbered edition of 50 copies, Kodoji Press, Baden 2020, ISBN 978-3-03747-100-5 SOLD OUT
Lessons of Darkness is the book-form element of an ongoing research and exhibition project by Atlas Studio in collaboration with Philippe Egger and Jiajia Zhang. The authors work together as the Kai Kami Kabi collective (meaning sea-shell, bacteria, spirit), figures borrowed from a 1960 text by Noboru Kawazoe, a leading figure of the Metabolism architectural movement. For the Metabolists – like many other theorists considering the relationship between an individual and their environment in architectural and urban design – the membrane was a seminal concept.
This publication demands active reading. Its images are printed in clear varnish on black-printed stone paper; the reader must continually adjust their viewpoint in order to discern them. The incomplete impressions thus gained accelerate a sense of movement within images that might be timeless: cloaked figures in built landscapes, sometimes carrying heavy bundles. In fact the printed fabric sheets that are just discernible in the images mark –and even exist thanks to – recent and centuries-old trade routes, cultural exchange, economic expedience, manufacturing and material technology. Found fabric remnants have been overprinted with camouflage patterns and adorned with texts and graphics, giving form to Kawazoe’s ideas.
In Lessons of Darkness the cloth or sheet is seen as the most rudimentary protection or layer between a person and their surroundings; it is their proximate architecture. As much as it can mark a space it can enable a disappearance. Lessons of Darkness is a reflection on porousness and offers lessons in contemporaneity and historical perspective. The Kai Kami Kabi project is ongoing; as it continues the publication will be extended with contrasting colour pages documenting its exhibition.
Martin Andereggen, Claudio Gasser and Jonas Wandeler live and work in Zurich. The trio studied graphic design at the ZHdK, Zurich University of the Arts, where they teamed up in 2012 to run Atlas Studio.