Book Launch: Products & Services

Products & Services is a poetic catalogue of the visual language(s) surrounding commodities. Through a series of visual works, texts, and a hoard of found objects, the publication explores how value is held: by dusty packaging, bootleg logos, misspelt slogans, global display systems and localised notions of worth.

By applying frivolity as a method for questioning value systems, the publication churns commercial with art objects, forges ubiquity through the handmade, and swirls in the long string of small social interactions that make nothing into something in a world that seems to sell everything.

Products & Services stems from Eleni Papazoglou’s visual investigations presented alongside the written contributions: Friendly Exchanges by Lucy Cowling, Bag and Bootleg by Elaine M L Tam (who will also be reading on the day), Changing Display by Lisa Sudhibhasilp, and The Commodity & the Exhibition by Joshua Simon. Edited by Daniel Fletcher. Book design by William Lyall. Kindly supported by the LCC Research Fund.

Eleni Papazoglou is an artist and graphic designer, based between London and Athens. Through performance, writing and print, her work explores systems of value and exchange, making alternative propositions about what is worth, who is it for and where is it found. Eleni studied at Camberwell College of Art and the Royal College of Art. She runs the nomadic project space On Wheels in collaboration with Rosalind Wilson*,* and takes on design commissions in collaboration with Ashley Kinnard. She exhibits in self organised and institutional contexts. Recent presentations include Hole, Hold, Whole, reclame (2023), Hall of Mirrors, PLOP (2023), Prizing Eccentric Talents, P.E.T. Projects, Collective Displays of Affection, Camden Art Center (2022). Eleni lectures at the London College of Communication [UAL].

Elaine M Tam is a curator and writer from Hong Kong based in London. Tam graduated from Goldsmiths University in 2019, having studied Contemporary Art Theory. She is currently Senior Editor at both White Cube gallery and Fieldnotes, a multi-disciplinary project championing experimental forms and work. Her research interests span queer literature, performative writing, psychoanalysis and new media theory. She has written essays, exhibition texts, poetry and fiction for numerous books and venues, and is co-editor of the art and scholarship anthology Companion, published annually.

Lucy Cowling is an independent curator and contemporary art producer living and working in London. She has programmed exhibitions, performances, workshops and events at organisations including Chisenhale Art Place, DKUK, Goldsmiths CCA, Kunstraum and SEAGER. Together with Mark Couzens she runs Kip, a project space in South London. Since 2018 she has co-directed Against the Run of Play alongside Sophie Bownes and Alice Ongaro. Against the Run of Play commissions artist projects, participatory events and new writing with a focus on female, non-binary and queer engagement with football and sports culture more broadly. Lucy graduated with an MFA in Curating from Goldsmiths University in 2019 and completed a Liberal Arts BA at Amsterdam University College in 2015.

Joshua Simon is a curator and writer. Currently a visiting professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, and research fellow at Leuphana University, Germany. Simon is author and editor of several books, among them Communists Anonymous (Sternberg Press), Being Together Precedes Being: A Textbook for The Kids Want Communism (Archive Books), and Neomaterialism (Sternberg Press). His recent exhibitions include “The Dividual” at the Kunstraum of Leuphana University Lüneburg and at LACA - Los Angeles Contemporary Archive (2021-2022), and “Slime” a hybrid exhibition, online and on-site at Secession in Vienna (2024).

Lisa Sudhibhasilp is a visual artist and curator. She develops her work and research around the notion of display and the agency that it generates through design, architecture, and social (infra)structures. She initiated reclame art space, a nomadic advertisement board hosted by local shops that presents practices challenging the culture of advertisement and the notion of merchandise. Sudhibhasilp’s work has been shown in different contexts such as art spaces, storage, publications, staircases, art fairs, shop windows, public space, bookshops, offices, museums and stores.

Foolscap Editions is an independent publisher that works in close collaboration with artists to release books and special editions. Founded in London in 2016. https://foolscap-editions.com/