CRUM (Centre de recherche urbaine de Montréal) assigned an amanuensis (latin for literary assistant) the task of answering questions posed by fifty-seven people in different cities. Bridging the distance of these disparate geographies, the amanuensis received these requests by email and twitter, then browsed the esoteric collection of the Prelinger Library (San Francisco) for the answers. The resulting collection of found images and texts is arranged as a 6-page narrative landscape depicting the history of communities and their relationship to the environment. The images were carefully scanned from old, musty paper volumes then arranged as a digital collage and reprinted on paper using commercial off-set lithography – the most common technology for book printing today. Copies of the narrative were snail-mailed back to the fifty-seven people so that their own reading experience would mirror that of the amanuensis browsing the Library. The publication has been exhibited at Pierre François Ouellette Art Contemporain and the Concordia University Library, it has been reviewed in C Magazine, No. 111.
9×13in, 10 pp, one-colour offset, black and white laser, envelope, 2011
Edition of 119
$40 CAD
Available from: http://www.artmetropole.com
More info: http://crum.ca/2011/08/15/petite-enveloppe-urbaine-no-19/
Felicity Tayler’s research, writing and artistic practice explores visual art as a means of information exchange and the function of artist-initiated publishing as a communications circuit. Recent projects include an exhibition for the National Gallery of Canada Library and Archives and a workshop with Julie Ault .
The Centre de recherche urbaine de Montreal (CRUM) is a symbiotic (parasitic) research group with no exhibition space of its own. The CRUM is an artists’ collective dedicated to exploring links between art and urban space. The Petite enveloppe urbaine commenced publication in 1998, and has been produced by the CRUM since 2000.
