Once upon a time there was a need for institutions that displayed pictures. Now that pictures are all around us, we have a need of institutions that conduct research into pictures. Onomatopee is such an institution. Five years old, established in Eindhoven and producing large numbers of presentations and publications, Onomatopee investigates not just pictures but also the role of language and text in relation to pictures. In addition to picture-makers, the firm also regularly recruits writers and poets into the fold.
Nest is the name of a series of four booklets and exhibitions from 2010. The panel saw three of the booklets and found them agreeably simple, energetic and intelligent.
Each one is sixty-four pages long in a modest format of slightly broad proportions. White and coloured recycled paper has been used for the interiors, the pages being sewn into an open spine and wrapped in an undersized wrapper pasted nonchalantly skew on the spine. Nonchalantly? The same skewed form returns here and there in the interiors to provide captions with a background. The typography is at once uncluttered and composed. The booklets suppress every inclination to carp or cavil. In a word: convincing.