OTHERS is a collaborative project between Japanese photographer Ikuhisa Sawada and Dutch artist Marc Nagtzaam. Beginning at opposite ends of a long distance, the trajectories of the two artists resemble a series of paths traveling towards one another following parallel lines, passing as they reach out for ends that are simultaneously shared and separate. This book, the first of four for this project, documents the act of “communication through artwork” through a series of images and sketches generated in the lead up to their first exhibition in Tokyo, as they allowed their work to change and adapt as it entered into the gravitational influence of the “other”.

Using paper which incorporates a textural difference on either side, the book in its original state is a completely flat unbound object, the work of the two artists being separated by virtue of never appearing on a single surface, but rather on opposing sides. Through the simple act of folding this object in half, a series of relationships appear like a weaving intervention piercing the artists lines and causing them to intertwine, though maintaining their independence by way of their continued textural and structural distinction as the book remains unbound. Going further, by turning this now folded object inside out, the chronology and relationships are reversed, allowing the symmetrical nature of the project to become graspable, and when reaching the conclusion of one path actualized in the book you are led to the beginning of the other, a loop like continuation exposing similarity, difference, and the growing influence on each other through proximity leading to organic change and inventive adaptation. -Publisher