Course Leader MA Book Arts

Artists' books, Book Art, Contemporary poetics, Small press publishing

Peer Esteem

Member of FADE Research group, UAL

Biography - Profile

Studied English Literature at the University of Vermont, Burlington, USA (1973-77) and Fine Art and Printmaking at the Central School of Art (1981-86). Lectured extensively on Printmaking and Book Arts in the UK since 1985, including at Oxford Brookes University and Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, joined Camberwell College of Art in 1997.

Work in collections include the New York Library; V&A Museum, London; Tate Gallery Library, London; Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; University Library of Heidelberg; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Museum van het Boek, Netherlands; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington.

She has most recently co-curated - and exhibited in - 'Cunning Chapters: A Collaborative Artists' Book', on show at the British Library, London until January 2008.

Current Research - Artist Statement

"My research focuses on the development and production of artists' books under the imprint of Gefn Press. The press has published thirty books to date and will have a retrospective exhibition at the University of Vermont, Burlington, USA in 2006/07. Projects from the last decade have explored relationships between digital sequences, photo-animations outputted onto CD-ROM or DVD and the physical book. Discussing this work in 'Literary Value / Cultural Power: Verbal Arts in the Twenty-first Century' (Manchester University Press), Lynette Hunter describes the pieces as 'synergetic texts'.

I am interested in the artists' book as a site for collaborative practice, and in 1997-2000 co-curated the artists' book millennium project 'Volumes (of vulnerability)' with Dr. Katharine Meynell of Middlesex University, which included the work of twenty artists and toured internationally. We are currently developing a new collaborative venture entitled 'Cunning Chapters' which will re-examine the category of artists' books in light of recent cultural and technological shifts, producing a series of chapters where issues of aesthetics and 'well-madeness' are exposed and analysed.

Another recent collaborative project was co-editing the book 'Here are my Instructions' (2004) with Dr. Redell Olsen of Royal Holloway, University of London in response to the 'writing instructions / reading walls' series of installations we curated at the Poetry Society, London in 2003. I am continuing to consider physicality and poetics through my investigation of letterpress printing and writing practice (recent poems are published in HOW(2), internet journal of Contemporary and Innovative Writing by Women hosted by Bucknell University, and PORES, avant-gardist journal of poetic research hosted by Birkbeck College).

The latest Gefn Press publication 'Subsequent Drainage on Folding Rocks' incorporates a hypertext CD into a printed booklet looking at landscape as a site of natural and industrially initiated change."

Recent Research Outputs - Selection

Exhibitions
2007   'Cunning Chapters', British Library, London
2005   Arcadia Id Est: Artists' Books, Nature and the Landscape', TRACE Gallery & internationally touring
2005   '30 Years of Innovation: A Survey of Exhibition History at the Center for Book Arts, 1974-2004 ', Center for Book Arts, New York
2004   'Beyond the Digital Surface', Ewha Gallery, Seoul, Korea
2003   '(re)readings: Artists Books Now', Gallery Lux, San Francisco
2003   'Inside Cover', The Center for the Book, San Francisco
2002   'After Dolly', FUSE art/science exhibition, ICA, London
2001   'Artists' Books about Artists', The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC

Curating
2007   Co-curator, 'Cunning Chapters', in collaboration with Dr. Katharine Meynell of Middlesex University, British Library, London
2003   Co-curator, 'writing instructions / reading walls' visual poetics project, Poetry Society Cafe, London, leading to the publication 'here are my instructions' edited with Dr. Redell Olsen, Royal Holloway, University of London
2000   Co-curator and exhibitor, 'Volumes (of vulnerability)', artists' book millennium project, touring nationally and internationally.

Artists' Books - authored
Johanknecht, S. (2004) Subsequent Drainage on Folding Racks. London: Gefn Press
Johanknecht, S. (2001) Modern (Laundry) Production. London: Gefn Press

Books - edited
Johanknecht, S. and Olsen, R. (eds) (2004) 'Here are my Instructions', London: Gefn Press
Johanknecht, S. and Meynell, K. (eds) (2000) 'Volumes (of Vulnerability)', London: Gefn Press

Poetry
Johanknecht, S. (issue 4, 2005) 'Armour' (online). Pores - avant-gardist journal of poetic research.
Johanknecht, S. (spring 2004) 'Plates 1 -4, Figures 1-3, Advice to Miss Buswell and Miss Ripley on Drawing Fossils, List of Illustrations' (online). How2 Journal of contemporary writing
Johanknecht, S. (autumn 2002) 'Modern (Laundry) Production' (online). How2 Journal of contemporary writing

Selected Articles
Johanknecht, S. (2004) 'Stockholm'. Fantastic Cities, ed. Lucy Harrison, Canterbury: Kent Institute of Art & Design.

Johanknecht, S. (2003) 'The Symbolic Book: A Travelogue'. The Book Show, ed. Simon Morley, London: Utopia Press with the Nunnery and The Wordsworth Trust.

six artist's pages, (2003) 'Bildersprechen', 6. Jahrbuch der Hochschule fuer Bildende Kuenste, Braunschweig, Cologne: Salon Verlag.

Johanknecht, S. (2003) 'Some Reformations'. Artist's Book Yearbook 2003-2005, ed. Sarah Bodman, Bristol: Impact Press.

Kivland, S. and Sanderson, L. (eds) (2002) 'Transmissions: Speaking and Listening'. Sheffield: Site Gallery & Sheffield Hallam University - features interview with S. Johanknecht

Johanknecht, S. and Meynell, K (June 2001) 'Mohini Chandra: Album Pacifica', Review, Art Monthly.

Johanknecht, S. and Meynell, K (May 2000) 'Repetivity: Platforms and Approaches for Publishing, Art Monthly.

Supervision Expertise

Books Arts

Current Research Students

Raphael Vella - The Unpresentable: The Artistic Biblioclasm and the Sublime
Zoe Tillotson - The Ethics and Poetics of Ephemeral Art

Related Links

• Paupers Publications http://www.pauperspublications.com/
• Art Omna http://www.art-omma.org/ issue no.11, project room
• How2 Journal of contenporary writing: http://www.how2journal.com/  autumn 2002 + spring 2004 issue
• Pores avant-gardist Journal of poetic research http://www.pores.bbk.ac.uk/4/index.htm issue 4

E-mail address

s.johanknecht@camberwell.arts.ac.uk