Upcycle This Book  (Special Edition 1, 2017)
A special copy of Upcycle this Book, including a print edition of a Unit-type drawing
190mm x 130mm (print size)
Edition of 100
Signed and numbered by the artist

Standard Price £85
Supporters price* £76.50
*Please note that the Supporters price is available to those who support Book Works via the Readers Club and Supporters scheme. For more information how to support Book Works please click here.

This special edition book was produced on account of the Kickstarter campaign for Upcycle This Book by Gavin Wade (2017), co-published by Book Works and Stroom den Haag.

About the work:
Upcycle this Book consists of twenty-six chapters, twelve constructivist drawings using the alphabet as a motif, and an introduction by David Burrows. Designed by James Langdon, the book collects for the first time the writings of Gavin Wade and explores a practice that he refers to as ‘upcycling’, a process of stealing, copying, recycling, using other texts and artworks, and responding to existing conditions.

‘Upcycle this book. Rewrite it as a manifesto. Steal and take and copy and change this book. Upcycle these twenty-six texts just as I have upcycled so many other texts and responded to many sets of existing conditions. Or unlike I have.’ – Gavin Wade

Some of the texts are artworks – manifestoes, stories, statements – others are interviews, discussions, proposals.

‘I made this manual for survival with many friends and collaborators – James Langdon, Céline Condorelli, Paul Conneally, Herbert Bayer, Duncan McLaren, Paul O’Neill, Joanne Tatham and Tom O’Sullivan, Frederick Kiesler, Gordon Dalton, Åbäke, David Burrows, El Lissitzky, Abbie Hoffman, R. Buckminster Fuller, Juneau Projects, and a host of other willing and unwitting accomplices, dead or alive.’ –  Gavin Wade

This publication was made possible with the generous support of all those who donated through Kickstarter.

About the artist:
Gavin Wade is an artist-curator, Director of Eastside Projects, and Senior Research Fellow at Birmingham City University. His (co)curated exhibitions include ‘Sonia Boyce: In the Castle of My Skin’ (2020), ‘This is the Gallery and the Gallery is Many Things X’ (2018), and ‘Display Show’ (2015–16), Temple Bar Gallery/Eastside Projects/Stroom den Haag.

Wade makes/has made art on twitter, in public squares, shopping malls, naval frigates, cathedrals, Commons, Parks, The London Underground, Dudley Zoo, and the future Smithfield Market in the centre of Birmingham (2025). His books include ‘Upcycle This Book’ (2017) and ‘Has Man A Function In Universe’ (2008), both published by Book Works. He is a Company Director and one of Eastside Projects’ founders.

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