Enfolded Journeys – Venice edition

Enfolded Journeys is an open call touring exhibition of 28 new artists’ books made in response to themes suggested by the title.

The themes relate to travel, displacement, geographies and borders, and migration in recent times and in the past as the effects of such movements of peoples – whether compelled or voluntary –  may resound through generations.

Coming together, these artists’ books exemplify the story telling, documenting of experience and the sharing characteristics of the book, which have always provided a self-contained, intimate yet accessible and mobile form.

Furthermore, an artist’s book may also involve an encounter that is distinctive to the medium; one that encompasses a shift of expectations of what a book is or does.

Curated by John McDowall and Chris Taylor – and co-selected with artists Karen Babayan and Sophie Loss – the first iteration of this exhibition opened at The Leeds Library on Commercial Street to coincide with the PAGES Artists’ Book Fair in March/April 2025.

The touring exhibition provides an opportunity and contextualised platform for 50 individual artists and makers, to show their new book works to varied audiences across the UK and abroad

Batool Showgi, A Visual Reflection on Displacement, Textile and stitching, 2025.

Exhibiting artists

Aravind Enrique Adyanthaya / Joan Ainley and David Ainley / Haleema Aziz / Sena Basoz, Ulgen Semerci and Serra Tansel / Peter Carrington / Danuta Dąbrowska / Frances Day / Katrin Freitag / Judy Goldhill / Déirdre Kelly / Graham Martin / Sandra Masterson / Andrew Morrison and Maria Stadnicka / Kausar Nigita / Alastair Noble / Caroline Penn / Sumi Perera / Emilija Pliaukštaitė / Mireille Ribière / Isobel Richards / Paula Roush / Batool Showghi / Vicky Vergou / Wei Wang / Corinne Welch / Maria White / Katrina Whitehead / Roy Willingham

Exhibition curators

John McDowall (alumnus and Visiting Researcher, University of Leeds) and Chris Taylor (Professor in Fine Art Practice, University of Leeds) of are co-directors of PAGES. Founded in 1998 and operating around the hub of a biennial Artists’ Book Fair, the initiative has provided numerous and wide-ranging opportunities for the development and awareness of the book as primary medium in art practice.

Manifestations such as exhibitions, workshops, open calls and curated projects have facilitated experimentation, dissemination and engagement for audience and makers. These include: Special Collections (University of Leeds Gallery, 2007); From Book to Book (Leeds Art Gallery, 2008); Collections & Collaborations and Pages: Future Potentials/Future Legacies (2015 & 2017, The Tetley, Leeds).

Touring projects comprise ARCHIVE (2003 – ), New Voices (2019 – ) and Enfolded Journeys (2025 –).

Venue

Scuola Internazionale di Grafica
Cannaregio 1798
Venice 30121
Italy

The exhibition is open daily from 10am to 5.30pm. Closed Monday 14 September.

Find out more about the exhibition and venue.

 

More information

This gathering of books by multinational artists has evolved from an earlier project, Shifting Borders: A Journey to the Centre of Our World(s) exhibition curated by Chris Taylor and held in the Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery at the University of Leeds, UK, in 2023.

Shifting Borders examined how artists and authors over the centuries have responded to and mapped out the World through image and text. At the core of the exhibition was Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, 1486), the first ever printed travel guide which, through a series of highly detailed fold-out woodcuts illustrating the main ports of call, begins its journey in Venice.

Curated by John McDowall and Chris Taylor, Enfolded Journeys’ itinerary began in March 2025 at the historic Leeds Library, travelled to the rural town of Appleby-in-Westmorland to coincide with the annual Gypsy, Romany and Travellers’ Horse Fair (June 2025), sailed by ferry across the Firth of Clyde to Dunoon MOCA in Scotland (July & August 2025), installed at DANUM Gallery, Library and Museum in Doncaster, Yorkshire (May to July 2026), before travelling by train to end its journey at the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice.

The 28 artists’ books are shown on bespoke plywood modular display structures, made with reference to the Lawn Road Flats, London; the first Modernist block of flats constructed in Britain.

Designed by Canadian architect Wells Coates in collaboration with Jack and Molly Pritchard of the Isokon plywood furniture company, it was completed in 1934 and soon provided sanctuary for designers and teachers from pre-war Europe, including Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, enabling the Bauhaus ideals of collaboration and Internationalism to continue and spread.

For more information, please email Chris Taylor at C.A.Taylor@leeds.ac.uk.

Feature image

Deirdre Kelly, Tracing Ruskin’s Steps: Landward View from Venice, 2025.