Mountain of Salt by Bindi Vora
Border closures, flight cancellations, stay-at-home orders; a collective populace clinging to news broadcasts, online analysis, social media, and hearsay. Few times in our living memory had language – however fragmented, misinformed, measured or rhetorical – carried such weight.
The early iterations of Mountain of Salt, Bindi Vora’s expansive series of text-based collage works, began to take form in this very context. Comprising found photographs and digital shape collages, each married to phrases and statements appropriated from news articles, press conferences, and social media, the 371-strong series traces the interweaving social, political and ideological arcs of the early phases of the pandemic, the post-Brexit era, and Black Lives Matter, landing squarely on the potency of language. ‘I, like many others, became acutely aware of the landscape in which we were living in, where everything felt amplified,’ says Vora. ‘Clinging to the news for updates, statistics and curves … for me it highlighted the way words and speech have a physical presence, bearing upon us and carrying weight.’
Through a cacophony of visual and textual fragments, this book – the London-based artist’s first with Perimeter Editions – revels in the tension between the micro and macro, the individual and collective, and the personal and political, teasing out and making connections between the individual events and linguistic armatures that come to build broader historical eras and movements. The outcomes are incisive, sober, witty, and wry, magnifying language’s ability to both define and dispel the collective mood. Drowning in a morass of information, phrases, photographs, infographics, throwaway lines, and revolutionary dictums, Vora’s visually poetic works echo the unfixed contemporary state. A place where alarm, agitation, desensitisation, and bemusement seem to intersect. Where words – free of hierarchy, nuance, and context – prove as absurd as they are critical. Mountain of Salt reads as a resolve to use them with great care.
Shortlisted for the Paris Photo-Aperture First Book Award 2023
About Bindi Vora
Bindi Vora is an interdisciplinary artist of Kenyan-Indian heritage, associate lecturer at LCC and senior curator at Autograph, London. She interested in how ideas of resistance and resilience are shaped by our surroundings, histories and lived experiences. Her practice often combines linguistics and an archive of personal and found photographs procured over the last decade to draw on the intersections between language, culture and their inherent power dynamics.
Her works have been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery (UK); Yinka Shonibare’s Guest Projects (UK); 180 The Strand (UK); Victoria & Albert Museum of Childhood (UK); Phoenix Gallery (UK); Cultural Centre of Belgrade (RS); Benaki Museum (GR); Art Stage, (SG); amongst others. Vora has been commissioned by the Hospital Rooms an arts and mental health charity to create new artworks for Devon Partnership NHS Foundation (2019) and Southwest London and St George’s Mental Health Trust (2023); additionally she was commissioned by FT Weekend Magazine ‘My London’ supplement (2023). In 2023 her first major photobook Mountain of Salt was published by Perimeter Books which has been shortlisted for the Aperture Foundation x Paris Photo First Book Award 2023.
Her works are part of collections including the Guy’s and St Thomas Foundation (UK); Imperial Health Charity (UK); National Museums NI (UK) amongst others. Vora is currently the artist-in-residence at the National Museum Northern Ireland as part of the 20/20 programme led by the UAL Decolonising Arts Institute. She lives and works in London.
Read More
Gingko Leaf Paper Pad by OFFCUT
For every printed matter that is created, remnants from their make are inevitably left behind.
OFFCUT was created to re-purpose these remnant papers into refreshed stationery, turning “waste material” into sustainable goods for everyday use.
About OFFCUT
OFFCUT is an initiative by Allegro Print to reduce paper waste and repurpose waste paper from our print production process. Excess space within a print job is utilised to minimise actual offcuts in production, creating our own stationery designs. Inevitable paper waste is repurposed into refreshed stationery.
Through its own retail space, the ‘Paper Thrift Store’, OFFCUT is able to inspire and demonstrate that repurposed products can be affordable and thoughtfully designed without compromising quality. 😊 ♻️
Read More
Weekly Paper Pad by OFFCUT
For every printed matter that is created, remnants from their make are inevitably left behind.
OFFCUT was created to re-purpose these remnant papers into refreshed stationery, turning “waste material” into sustainable goods for everyday use.
About OFFCUT
OFFCUT is an initiative by Allegro Print to reduce paper waste and repurpose waste paper from our print production process. Excess space within a print job is utilised to minimise actual offcuts in production, creating our own stationery designs. Inevitable paper waste is repurposed into refreshed stationery.
Through its own retail space, the ‘Paper Thrift Store’, OFFCUT is able to inspire and demonstrate that repurposed products can be affordable and thoughtfully designed without compromising quality. 😊 ♻️
Read More
Not To-do List by OFFCUT
For every printed matter that is created, remnants from their make are inevitably left behind.
OFFCUT was created to re-purpose these remnant papers into refreshed stationery, turning “waste material” into sustainable goods for everyday use.
About OFFCUT
OFFCUT is an initiative by Allegro Print to reduce paper waste and repurpose waste paper from our print production process. Excess space within a print job is utilised to minimise actual offcuts in production, creating our own stationery designs. Inevitable paper waste is repurposed into refreshed stationery.
Through its own retail space, the ‘Paper Thrift Store’, OFFCUT is able to inspire and demonstrate that repurposed products can be affordable and thoughtfully designed without compromising quality. 😊 ♻️
Read More
To-do List 3.0 (Pocket ver) by OFFCUT
For every printed matter that is created, remnants from their make are inevitably left behind.
OFFCUT was created to re-purpose these remnant papers into refreshed stationery, turning “waste material” into sustainable goods for everyday use.
About OFFCUT
OFFCUT is an initiative by Allegro Print to reduce paper waste and repurpose waste paper from our print production process. Excess space within a print job is utilised to minimise actual offcuts in production, creating our own stationery designs. Inevitable paper waste is repurposed into refreshed stationery.
Through its own retail space, the ‘Paper Thrift Store’, OFFCUT is able to inspire and demonstrate that repurposed products can be affordable and thoughtfully designed without compromising quality. 😊 ♻️
Read More
Washi Tape – Checkered Joys by OFFCUT
Explore our amazing collection of Oolors washi tapes, featuring cool designs on each roll that stick easily.
Use them to decorate planners, journals, or gifts – they make everything look awesome! We have lots of colors and patterns to choose from, so let your creativity run wild with this must-have crafting tool!
About OFFCUT
OFFCUT is an initiative by Allegro Print to reduce paper waste and repurpose waste paper from our print production process. Excess space within a print job is utilised to minimise actual offcuts in production, creating our own stationery designs. Inevitable paper waste is repurposed into refreshed stationery.
Through its own retail space, the ‘Paper Thrift Store’, OFFCUT is able to inspire and demonstrate that repurposed products can be affordable and thoughtfully designed without compromising quality. 😊 ♻️
Read More
Washi Tape – Smilelicious Hawker by OFFCUT
Explore our amazing collection of Oolors washi tapes, featuring cool designs on each roll that stick easily.
Use them to decorate planners, journals, or gifts – they make everything look awesome! We have lots of colors and patterns to choose from, so let your creativity run wild with this must-have crafting tool!
About OFFCUT
OFFCUT is an initiative by Allegro Print to reduce paper waste and repurpose waste paper from our print production process. Excess space within a print job is utilised to minimise actual offcuts in production, creating our own stationery designs. Inevitable paper waste is repurposed into refreshed stationery.
Through its own retail space, the ‘Paper Thrift Store’, OFFCUT is able to inspire and demonstrate that repurposed products can be affordable and thoughtfully designed without compromising quality. 😊 ♻️
Read More
national flower by Hong Shu-ying
national flower takes an affectionate look at the bougainvillea plant and how things are in Singapore’s landscape.
About Hong Shu-ying
Hong Shu-ying 方舒颖 (b.1997, Singapore) is an artist who collects and works with found images and materials. She recontextualises familiar sights and sounds to highlight patterns, repetitions, and contradictions related to inheritance and ways of learning.
Her recent projects delve into informal archives, which act like personal and communal time capsules that encapsulate the banalities and peculiarities of life. These include handwritten elements found in scores and annotations, alongside amateur videos and images. This fascination is informed by her experiences growing up in amateur Chinese orchestras and the internet.
Shu holds a BFA (Hons) in Media Art (Photography) from Nanyang Technological University, School of Art, Design, and Media. She was awarded the Kwek Leng Joo Prize of Excellence in Photography and featured in the 6th Women in Film and Photography Showcase by Objectifs (Singapore). Recently, she had her first solo presentation at Esplanade (Singapore) as part of the Singapore Art Week 2024. She has participated in exhibitions, showcases, and festivals internationally, including in Austria, Cambodia, China, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand.
Read More
KRESEK – daily life of plastic bags by Cynthia Delaney Suwito
Some may like plastic bags for their convenience, while others may dislike them for polluting the environment. Regardless of anyone’s stance, the plastic bag as an object is just something that passes through our lives.
Kresek is the rustling of plastic bags in Bahasa Indonesia. It is also the title of this light-hearted wordless comic, revolving around the little movements of the plastic bag.
This book offers a fresh perspective of the plastic bag by giving the common object a face and a personality. Following the earthly adventures of the plastic bag, this book invites people to give the plastic bag more thought, connecting to it and examining its place in today’s cultures. When we have hopefully passed the plastic bag obsession in the future, this book will be a reminder of a behaviour that we once had.
About Cynthia Delaney Suwito
Cynthia Delaney Suwito is a visual artist who explores the theme of everyday objects and experiences. Using them as both her theme and material, she uses observational humour to explore such daily phenomena as the omnipresence of instant noodles, the misfortunes of plastic bags, the misuse of clothes pegs, and the perpetual turning of toilet paper rolls. Her work gives spaces for everyday objects to challenge its own mundanity. Her work takes varied forms, many of which are site specific, interactive sculptures and installations.
Born in Indonesia and based in Singapore, Cynthia completed her Bachelor in Fine Arts, First Class Honours at LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore. Cynthia was featured on BBC Asia and Channel News Asia, and was in the 2017 FORBES 30 under 30 Asia in the Arts. She has exhibited at Bandung Contemporary Art Award Assemblage, 2019, in Indonesia, and at Superfluidity: The Parallel Universes Daily Mimicry, 2022, in Taipei. In Singapore, Cynthia exhibited at Hawker! Hawker! in 2021, Singapore International Photography Festival in 2022, and had a solo presentation while we wait in 2020.
Imagine Chinese by Armelle Burke
Imagine Chinese illustrates 150 simple Chinese characters with photographs to represent their meaning, taken over a decade of travel in China by Photographer Armelle Burke. A series of photographic essays visualise the iconic imagery in Chinese characters to make them understandable. This book explains what you need to know about a country where the written language is unique.
The book has four sections: Human, Nature, Animal and Material, presenting Chinese characters relevant to each theme. An introduction to Chinese character construction, their history and the evolution of Chinese script enables the reader to comprehend the information in the book.
Imagine Chinese concludes with a giant gallery mural illustrating the meaning of 600 Chinese characters with photographs, exemplifying that learning the simple characters presented in this book enables Chinese comprehension to expand rapidly. The book’s Photography shows in glorious colours a fascinating country and illuminates what is dazzling, different and useful to know about a language and culture oozing imagination.
About Armelle Burke
Armelle Burke is a British/French Photographer who has travelled extensively. Her creative projects include music Photography for London-based magazines and ski Photography in Argentina. Armelle Lectures Photography at Universities in China and has spent a decade studying Chinese. Armelle is a native English speaker and fluent in French. She has also studied Spanish, Portuguese, and Indonesian.
Imagine Chinese is inspired by her language studies and years of professional practice as an Artist and Lecturer. The story follows her creative journey to understand Chinese using a camera, producing a book where art and language collide.
Armelle Burke is represented by the London Siger Gallery, with whom she exhibits her Photographic artwork internationally. For more information about Armelle Burke, please visit: www.armelle.co.uk
Read More