What is an impossible book? In this introductory workshop, artist kathy wu will facilitate a workshop on creating books inspired by Surrealist books and sculptures. Collaboratively, participants will create books that push the limits of what books might be — books made of strange materials, or with writing no one can read. Participants will look at Meret Oppenheim’s Object, (1936), Salvador Dalí’s Lobster Telephone (1936), and Giorgio De Chirico’s 1913 contribution to Défense de savoir (Prohibition of Knowing) for inspiration toward form.
Each participant will learn a simple, three-hole pamphlet stitch to make a sixteen-page booklet. We’ll then create our own prompts on how to make our books “impossible”—using chance operation and material play to transform our books into unreadable and possibly unusable objects.
Recommended for adults and teens. Space is limited and RSVP is required.
This workshop is designed in collaboration with the Center for Book Arts.
kathy wu is an artist, poet, designer, and educator working across language, computation, books, and textile to pull at fraught histories of ecology, technology, and industry. Their debut book, SHE WILL LAST AS LONG AS STONES, was the 2024 Wendy’s Subway Passage Prize winner. Their writing has been anthologized by Fonograf Editions and Nightboat Books, and selected by Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center and Bread Loaf Writers Conference. They are currently an artist fellow at the Center for Book Arts and a lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Graphic Design department.
Center for Book Arts promotes active explorations of artistic practices related to the book as an art object. Founded in 1974, Center for Book Arts is the oldest nonprofit dedicated to uplifting and furthering the book arts and book art through education, preservation, exhibition, art-making, and community building.
Accessibility
American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation and live captioning is available for public programs upon request with two weeks’ advance notice. MoMA will make every effort to provide accommodation for requests made with less than two weeks’ notice. Please contact [email protected] to make a request for these accommodations.
The entrance to the Creativity Lab has a power-assist door. Seating options include chairs with backs.
For more information on accessibility at MoMA, please visit moma.org/Access. For accessibility questions or accommodation requests, please email [email protected].
The Adobe Foundation is proud to support equity, learning, and creativity at MoMA.
Major funding is provided by the Agnes Gund Education Endowment Fund for Public Programs, the Jeanne Thayer Young Scholars Fund, and the Annual Education Fund.