LIVE BOOKBINDING

PRESENTED AS PART OF THE 2021 NGV MELBOURNE ART BOOK FAIR

Dip and bob was made especially for the 2021 NGV Melbourne Art Book Fair and it began its life initially as a zine and it evolved into an artists’ book. An artists’ book we bound live on our IGTV.

Dip and bob began as a 620cm long digital collage that now runs over 72 pages. It is printed on 150gsm Impact 100% Recycled Uncoated stock, and the watercolour cover which holds it secure is on Fabriano Artistico 300gsm traditional white hot-press paper.

In the collage created in place of a swim, you can see the cyanotypes of Anna Atkins (1799–1871). Her “flowers of the sea” from plates made by placing wet algae onto light-sensitized paper exposed to sunlight. You can see papyrus fragments with lines from Homer’s Odyssey for kelp bands; a crab from a trade card, not for a skillet; and vases from the MET. Elsewhere, there is chainmail for tentacles; and hair tendrils from The Young Saint John the Baptist, ca. 1480–82, have been repurposed as seaweed. A Chimú collar, twelfth–fourteenth century, with a fringe of Spondylus shells for a jellyfish appears towards the tail end. Some elements are easy to spot; others less so. A bit of fun, yes, and all to help us sing, our only chance of a healthy, safe, joyous, and sustainable future is to return to being reciprocal with nature so nature can continue to look after us. Stand up and fight for the oceans and the waterways.

Thanks, once more, to the digital collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, Rijksmuseum, State Library of New South Wales, and State Library Victoria for the treasure.

Editions of Dip and bob have been acquired by Monash University Library, National Library of Australia, State Library of NSW, State Library of Queensland, State Library Victoria, and University of Melbourne’s Baillieu Library.

You can purchase a copy of Dip and bob through our online store.

Rewind to late March.

Thank-you for joining our first ever bookbinding on Instagram LIVE session (on Sunday the 28th of March, 2021), in our lounge room for the purposes of internet and flexibility. Thank-you all so very much for joining us to bind Dip and bob. We loved sharing this beautiful experiement with you all.

Rewind farther still.

Please feel free to explore the Dance archives, which are slowly filling with written pieces from 2012 to when this space launched in 2016.

Catch, while you can.

The Urban Field Naturalists’ Guide to Lesser-Known Pollinators: Explore ways to tell stories about the natural world is on until Friday the 21st of May, 2021, at UTS Library, UTS Central, level 7, 61 Broadway, Ultimo, NSW. We’re delighted to have our work featured in this group exhibition.

Image credit: Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Dip and bob (detail), 2021, artists’ book