Afternoon Editions

Launch on 24.11, 17:00 at Budascoop Kortrijk

Afternoon Editions is a series of commissioned texts that develops out of the project Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine. For this project a group of people dedicate themselves to memorizing a book of their choice. Together they form a library collection consisting of living books. After years of learning by heart and reciting for readers, some of the books were written down from memory to create new editions, versions resulting from this process. For these editions the project Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine became a publishing house.

Afternoon Editions is dedicated to sharing content in various forms, related to books, memory, reading, writing and publishing. The series extends from the practice and experience of the project Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine. Afternoon Editions is about circulation and exchange of ideas. With its stapled half-A4 format (designed by Michaël Bussaer), a new edition (edited by Mette Edvardsen) could be published or read in an afternoon.

Afternoon Edition #1: Reseeding the library, gleaning readership

In May 2017, Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine settled during three weeks in the Ravenstein Gallery in Brussels as part of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Invited as a writer in residence, Jeroen Peeters visited the library of living books on a daily basis and recorded his observations by hand in a notebook, which formed the basis for Afternoon Edition #1. Reseeding the library, gleaning readership is an essay on the seed library, on the dispersion of literature through wind, water and animals, on biodiversity and commoning at the heart of readership. On the cover a drawing by Wouter Krokaert of a Philodendron Xanadu.

On the occasion of the NEXT Festival, editor Mette Edvardsen will introduce the Afternoon Editions. As a ‘first reader’, Kristien Van den Brande – herself a living book, an avid reader and a researcher of experimental publication – will share her impressions of Reseeding the library, gleaning readership and engage in a dialogue with essayist Jeroen Peeters. Well aware that readership is a plural, multiple-voiced affair, they’ll reach out to other readers of the essay, following some of its seeds into distant fields.