Island, by Caruso St John and Marcus Taylor

£30, published by The Store X The Spaces. Order now

Island is a new 238-page book edited by architecture practice Caruso St John and artist Marcus Taylor. It explores an island as a place of refuge and exile, including contributions from artists, writers, a museum director and a poet.

The book accompanies the British Pavilion’s exhibition of the same name – commissioned by the British Council – at the 16th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia. Responding to the 2018 Biennale theme of Freespace, curators Caruso St John and Marcus Taylor have reimagined the pavilion as an island, a new public space for performances, discussions and afternoon tea in the Giardini. This book is a parallel platform given to words and images.

Published by The Store X The Spaces, Island features contributions from artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah, poet and musician Kate Tempest and Museu Calouste Gulbenkian director Penelope Curtis. Alongside these are found texts by William Shakespeare and Windrush generation writer Sam Selvon. Themes like abandonment, reconstruction, migration, empire, climate change, Brexit and sanctuary pervade their work.

Caruso St John co-founder Adam Caruso also reveals how the concept for Island was born – an ‘idea that sounded a bit crazy but got better the more you thought about it’ – and Marcus Taylor contributes a dynamic series of images.

‘Island builds a picture of how artists, designers, photographers, writers and curators are responding to current times, and in particular to a seismic shift in our identity,’ says Sarah Mann, Director of Architecture Design Fashion at the British Council, and the commissioner of the British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

The book is designed by John Morgan Studio, who took cues from a first edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the cover of which is said to resemble a chain of white islands in a blue sea.

Details:
* 238-page paperback book published by The Store X The Spaces to accompany the British Pavilion’s exhibition of the same name at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale
* Edited by Island exhibition curators Caruso St John and Marcus Taylor
* 
Includes contributions from artist John Akomfrah, poet and musician Kate Tempest and Museu Calouste Gulbenkian director Penelope Curtis
* 
Includes short stories from Windrush generation writer Sam Selvon, written in 1957, and a 19th-century version of a work by William Shakespeare
* Printed on fine art stocks including Arcoprint Milk, Arcoprint Edizioni 1.7 and Symbol Matt Plus
* Size: 222 x 167 mm, portrait
* Designed by John Morgan studio

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Island is the second Venice Architecture Biennale title from The Spaces, following Home Economics, co-published with REAL Foundation in 2016. Our titles call on leading critics, curators, artists, architects and photographers to reexamine how they curate, shape and experience the spaces that surround them.

Home Economics

£25, published by The Spaces

Home Economics presents five new models for domestic life in the 21st century. The book proposes alternative futures for the home, asking us to re-examine how we live through the lens of time.

Published by The Spaces to accompany the British Pavilion’s exhibition at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale (commissioned by the British Council), it re-writes the brief for contemporary living. 
Artists, architects and designers have created new proposals for the home based on the amount of time people will spend in them – hours, days, months, years and decades – all featured in the book.

‘New technologies have displaced how, where and when we work and play,’ say the exhibition curators, Shumi Bose, Jack Self and Finn Williams, in their introduction. As a result, a brave new world of possibility for the frontline of British architecture has emerged.

Co-published by REAL Foundation, this book is a truly collaborative work that engages with the world beyond architecture – including contributions by artists, fashion designers, photographers and critical writers – to inspire us to reconsider the spaces we spend time in, and our lives, anew.

The Spaces shares a common vision with the trio of curators behind Home Economics: that life is changing, and we must design for it.

Details:
* 160-page hardback book published by The Spaces to accompany the British Pavilion’s exhibition at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale
* Authored by the Home Economics curators Jack Self, Shumi Bose and Finn Williams
* 
Includes essays by leading architects, critics and housing experts including Eddie Blake, Tom Dyckhoff and Mark Cousins
* Foil blocked cover features one of four debossed A6 images by Matthieu Lavanchy
* 160pp printed on fine art stocks including Munken White, Burano Stone Grey, Gardagloss and Gardamatt
* 4pp end paper printed on 140gsm Woodstock Arancio
* Size: 210 x 280 mm, portrait
* Designed by London studio OK-RM

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