Category Archives: Philosophy

worm, root, wort… & bane

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worm, root, wort… & bane
by Ann Shelton

Artist Ann Shelton’s latest book, worm, root, wort… & bane delves into the rich history of plant-centric belief systems and their suppression. Part artist scrapbook, part photo book, part quotography, and part exhibition catalogue, this publication explores the medicinal, magical, and spiritual uses of plant materials, once deeply intertwined with the lives of European forest, nomadic, and ancient peoples.

worm, root, wort… & bane re-assembles fragments of historical knowledge alongside the first 19 artworks from Shelton’s photographic series, i am an old phenomenon (2022-ongoing). The plant sculptures photographed are constructed by the artist, who has worked with plants since childhood and long been interested in the history of floral art and its expansive gendered resonances.

Overflowing with 300+ images and quotations, this book traces the loss of plant knowledge held wise women, witches, and wortcunners in post-feudal Europe, as Christianity spread and capitalism emerged. The book follows our changing relationships with plants, through the Victorian era to the present — offering cause to reflect on the consequences of the ongoing estrangement between humans and the natural world.

worm, root, wort… & bane features a multiplicity of voices, reflecting the assorted and sometimes conflicting beliefs that are held about plants, gender, and sexuality. Adopting an intersectional approach, the book quotes historical accounts, herbal advice, folk knowledge, and artist research, and draws from art, literature, film, and television.

The book also features new essays by photographic curator Susan Bright and Victoria Munro, Executive Director of Alice Austen House, as well as The Three Fates, a short story by New Zealand writer Pip Adam, written in response to Ann Shelton’s research.


Ann Shelton, Pākehā/Italian (b. 1967, Aotearoa New Zealand) received her MFA from the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. She lives in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington, New Zealand and exhibits internationally. Her most recent museum survey, Dark Matter, curated by Zara Stanhope (Director, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Ngāmotu New Plymouth, Aotearoa New Zealand), was hosted by Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki in 2016 and toured to Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū in 2017. Shelton’s award-winning work has been extensively written about and reviewed in publications including Artforum, Hyperallergic, Journal of New Zealand & Pacific Studies, artnet news, The Art Newspaper, and the Evergreen Review. Her works are included in public and private collections throughout Aotearoa New Zealand and in the United States.

Shelton is Honorary Research Fellow in Photography at Whiti o Rehua, School of Art, Massey University, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa.

Shelton works with Over and Under Fine Art in New York, and Two Rooms in Aotearoa.

Publication date: March, 2024
Flexicover | 132 x 210 x 25mm | 312 pages |
ISBN 979-8-9888148-0-1

RRP $48  Available Late March 2024
Limited number available in NZ – pre-purchase now to secure your copy.

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For all wholesale orders and requests info@rimbooks.com

Geophagy

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Geophagy
Ruth Watson

Published in association with the exhibition Geophagy, 16 December-15 February 2018, Centre of Contemporary Art Toi Moroki (CoCA), Christchurch. 28 April-27 May 2017, GusFisher Gallery, Auckland.

Foreword by Romy Willing: ‘Cook little pot cook: Ruth Watson and capitalism’s geophagic moil – a letter’ / Allan Smith: ‘Many hands: Ruth Watson’s Unmapping the World’ / Josephine Berry: ‘Layers and entanglements: Four artworks in Geophagy’ / Rebecca Boswell: ‘Whirling and looping: ‘Unmapping memories in Ruth Watson’s Geophagy’ / Bruce E Phillips.

Geophagy, the practice of consuming dirt and clay, can be read as a metaphor for our overpopulation, consumption, and destruction of the Earth. Used by some indigenous peoples in cooking to absorb toxins from indigestible plants, geophagy can also be read as a more positive reference to our relationship to the Earth, and to indigenous knowledge; a conscious and purposeful consumption.

Auckland-based, Canterbury-born Ruth Watson’s multifaceted exhibition is acutely about the present moment, speaking to global politics and environmental issues. Through a sprawling installation, video, audio and printed works, Watson takes a critical look at the world today and seems to suggest that it’s not clear what we should do, collectively or individually. With so many issues and paths of action vying for our attention, the immeasurable size of the problems we face, and the systemic causes out of our control, taking action can feel overwhelming.

Describing the world as being in a state of “dystopian present”, Watson reflects on the complexity of our relationship to the environment, and the incongruity of living in a place that we are destroying, without any clear means to unify and prevent that destruction.

ISBN 9780473442323 Card cover with flap
115 pages : colour illustrations ; 150 x 200 mm
2017

$30 including GST

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Read the review in Pantograph Punch HERE
EyeContact HERE
Listen to Ruth on RNZ HERE

  • Design: Studio Kalee Jackson
  • Design: Studio Kalee Jackson
  • Design: Studio Kalee Jackson
  • Design: Studio Kalee Jackson
  • Design: Studio Kalee Jackson

SEEDS OF LIFE: The Bone Art of Bruce Mahalski
Craig Hilton and Bruce Mahalski
With foreword by Billie Lythberg. Ph.D

‘Seeds of Life – the Bone Art of Bruce Mahalski’ is a new book by scientist and artist, Craig Hilton. It realises the symbiotic potential of art–science collaborations with an unrelenting intensity. Both Mahalski and Hilton are interested in the ethical and philosophical implications of using biological material (living and non-living) in art to critique what they see as outdated and ‘species-dangerous’ social norms. The ethics of collecting biological material and making art with it are also … Continue reading →

BARRY BRICKELL READER: SELECTED ‘WRERTINGS’, MEDITATIONS, OUTBURSTS, DECREES AND DIVERSIONS

Edited by Gregory O’Brien
Photographs by Haruhiko Sameshima
Afterword by David Craig

Published by Steele Roberts Aotearoa in association with Rim Books.

Rim Books is absolutely ecstatic to be associated with publishing this book of ‘wrertings’ by the maverick New Zealand artist Barry Brickell.

Known for his decades of pottery making and mountain railway in Coromandel, he has dedicated his life to ceaseless art-making of all kinds. Less known but perhaps more revealing of his inner workings, are his passions for writing and reading, and his life long … Continue reading →

Stomp book cover

STOMP
Jon Carapiet

STOMP explores themes of photographic portraiture and ‘the gaze’ in the context of destruction, questioning how we connect and identify with the other.

The images were made in Europe, India and Egypt since 2014 and began as a personal response to the destruction in Bamiyan and Timbuktu, Palmyra and Aleppo. Such recent manifestations of fascism have 20th Century antecedents in the Holocaust and Armenian genocide, but trace even further back in human consciousness. There is a long history of attempting to erase people from memory.

Stomp seeks to reach beyond a sense of despair and … Continue reading →

Think it through front cover

THINKING IT THROUGH
Tony Watkins
Haruhiko Sameshima

Thinking it through was originally published in Home and Building from 1988 to 1996 when Kirsty Robertson, then editor for “Home and Building” invited Tony Watkins, who had for many years been a contributor to the magazine, to begin a new column called simply, “Thinking it through”. She also invited Haruhiko Sameshima to contribute a photograph for each column. Haru had never met Tony. For each issue Tony sent an article to Haru and Haru replied with a photograph. Tony in turn responded to each photograph with another article in the … Continue reading →