BIG LOG

BACKGROUND BIG LOG is a collaborative project by artist collective OSW (Dr Bianca Hester, Dr Terri Bird, Dr Scott Mitchell). For some years OSW has used various workshopping processes entailing collective experiments with techniques, technologies, machines, and materials, group excursions and collaborative writing exercises. These workshops are made public at various stages of their development with exhibitions being generative of new work. Past works, such as CLUBStennis and Active-air, investigate the passage of objects and people, utilising movement in their exploration of air as a material and spatial volume. CONTRIBUTION Drawing on nine years of collaborative practice, BIG LOG transforms the OSW research activities into an artist book. BIG LOG explores the potential of artist books to be a generative device for collaborative spatial practice. It exploits the unfolding and refolding potential of the Diagram of Relations that maps the past practice of OSW. Utilising the form of the book it develops correspondences through proximity to enable new constellations of associations to be formed. The diagram itself became the cover of the book through a series of folds. It is displayed on a structure also generated from the diagram so the total ensemble is an expanded book. Collected Collaborations, initiated by the Artists' Book Research Group, features propositional projects from the Redrawing Collective and OSW. "Grounded in the two collectives' respective practices, the two projects in Collected Collaborations encourage us to interrogate the popularity and fetishisation of the artist book, to ask 'why publish?', and to proceed in the making and the reception of artists' books with a critical eye." SIGNIFICANCE Catalogue essay and exhibition curation provided by Dr Brad Haylock. Other OSW shows include 2011 Collected Collaborations, curated by Kirrily Hammond, MUMA, Melbourne.