Deliquescing was published to accompany a 2018–19 solo exhibition of the same name by Steve Bishop at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. Within the exhibition, Bishop reconstructed the growing conditions for the lion’s mane mushroom – a fungus whose medical properties can reduce symptoms of memory loss. This environment was juxtaposed with documentation of an abandoned mining town in British Columbia, which is maintained in stasis by an anonymous caretaker.
Our design emphasises the communicative impact of materiality in the context of memory. A plastic dust jacket protects the publication from the effects of wear and time, and echoes the polythene sheeting used within the exhibition. Parrot and dove motifs, taken from window stickers found by Bishop within the abandoned town, are printed onto this plastic jacket. The book’s contents include tipped-in newspaper clippings alongside full-bleed installation and documentary photography, essays and an interview. Our approaches to typography and layout throughout the book reference ephemeral printed documents gathered by Bishop during his research.
We chose two condensed typefaces for the publication: GT Zirkon for the sans-serif headings and ITC Garamond Narrow for body text.
