Yellow Back Books is a collaborative project around artists’ books formed in 2015.

Having previously taken form as a temporary artists’ bookshop in shop units, art fairs and exhibitions in spaces, including a residency with ArcadeCampfa in 2018, Yellow Back Books will be situated in g39 for the forseeable future.

More info and new stock can be found on the YBB instagram. ︎ @yellowbackbooks


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Previous Projects

Cardiff Bookshop Map


Cardiff Bookshop Map is a not-for-profit project offering greater visibility to Cardiff’s independent bookshops and reading rooms.

The map will be available physically from ArcadeCampfa as well as independent bookshops across the city and includes a bilingual sound work, hosted on arcade-campfa.org, and available to listen to in the gallery space.



The map features work by artist and translator Esyllt Angharad Lewis, whose practice sits between art and writing. This series of work will be exhibited within Yellow Back Books for the duration of the show.

Cardiff Bookshop Map is produced by Yellow Back Books alongside writer and editor Hati Gibson. This project was developed as part of the Yellow Back Books residency at ArcadeCampfa, and is designed by curator and graphic designer Victoria McCusker. 2022 marks the first edition of Cardiff Bookshop Map.

View map and listen to audio piece

sucking~sensing~feeling~phantasying : Sonic Gut Meditations for Conference Call

Online, Saturday, 29 May, 2pm-3:30pm


As part of a collaboration with Jude Browning on her three-part performance and publication project At Practise, Yellow Back Books invited artist and writer Jessa Mockridge to share her workshop sucking~sensing~feeling~phantasying : Sonic Gut Meditations for Conference Call.

In sucking~sensing~feeling~phantasying : Sonic Gut Meditations for Conference Call, participants will come together to try out eight group listening exercises that are loosely based on composer Pauline Oliveros’ ‘Sonic Meditations’ (1974), and adapted for video call at a time when we’ve not been able to gather.



“The exercises attempt to expand what is allowed to be heard on a group call and proposes the idea of listening with the whole body, especially with the gut as a psychic organ. A politics of listening with the gut bloats what is hearable within the sonic architectures of headphones, throats, conference calls, bedrooms, rectums, YouTube, fantasies and the hiss of recordings.”

The title comes from Elizabeth A. Wilson’s Gut Feminism (2015), a book that introduced Jessa to the idea of the biological unconscious; the gut as a brooding and sometimes hostile feeling-organ.





Info
The exercises will be followed by participants through a text-based, printed score which we’ll send you. The movements will be non-verbal with breaks for check-ins. It’ll be a small group (up to 10 people) and you’ll be asked to have your video and sound on where possible. The workshop is free and everyone is welcome.


How to Book This workshop will be hosted by Jessa Mockridge, online, on Saturday 29 May, 2pm-3:30pm. Places are free but limited. To book please email
helloyellowbackbooks@gmail.com by Saturday 22nd May, noting your postal address so we can post you a printed ‘score’ ahead of the workshop.

Note -  Large-print versions of the score are also available -- let us know on booking if you’d prefer this version.


This is the first of two workshops. The second workshop will be run by Jude Browning as an experiment to see if the workshop format can be used as a toolkit: an invitation for groups to use the material to self-organise future listening events. For more information please go to -
https://www.daviddalegallery.co.uk/at-practise/.

The workshop was originally designed in August 2020 for a remote residency centering the gut with artists Rebecca Jagoe, Anna Zett, Rosa-Johan Uddoh and Maija Timonen at Wysing Arts Centre.


Artist Biography
Jessa Mockridge is an artist and writer (Cape Town) living in London. She works with print, performance, sound and moving image, exploring the power dynamics of media in relation to bodies and a politics of listening; a feminist ear that can also be an eye, skin or fist. Jessa is the co-editor of PaperWork, an art writing print publication and event series.


At Practise
At Practise is a three-part performance and publication project conceived and led by artist and writer Jude Browning. In 2021 nine UK based artists will be invited to present work in development for a live audience. In parallel to this live programme, At Practise will unfold as a three-part publication series produced with the support of David Dale Gallery and in dialogue with Yellow Back Books.