The Literal Intimacies of Zoology: Reading Through the Folders of Colonial-Science
Sara Giannini in conversation with Anna-Sophie Springer and Etienne Turpin

Sara Giannini: First of all, I would like to thank you for being a part of Unfold. I am thrilled to delve into your selection for Unfold#2 in only a few days. It is both exciting and intimidating because all the materials I have organized for the project will be so closely read and appropriated by your intervention. Since the launch of Unfold in September 2015, I have been going back to the problem of legibility and its ties to collecting. Etymologically, reading and collecting [“legere”/”colligere”] stem from intimately gathering together. I think that the practice of reading is the essential comportment of the project on several different levels: from Benjamin’s citing labour in The Arcades Project to my re-reading of it through the artistic contributions which repurpose projects for the specific space of the folder, and from the further readings which I commissioned, to those enlivened by the reader/viewer/user. With these remarks in mind, I wonder how you read Unfold#1?

Anna-Sophie Springer & Etienne Turpin: We read as we would in any other space, whether physical or digital, which is to say, promiscuously. If Walter Benjamin saw himself as a rag-picker in the history of the catastrophe called capitalism, we are, similarly, just scavenging through the ruined debris of the ivory tower, which is not without certain charms for the collector. Unfold presents a form that aligns with our style of inquiry, and we were excited to present a collection that can unfold for your readers as they work through The Lesson of Zoology…

CONTRIBUTOR: THE DELAWARE STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES

Join Our Mailing List