Editor:
Sara de Beer
Design:
Ben Johnson
Book binding & Production:
Candice Ježek at Dreampress
A4 Arts Production:
János Cserháti
Published by A4 Arts Foundation (2024)
Limited edition of 31 books
For my community –
I was looking for these lines.
This is a shortcut. This is an easier way.
I definitely and deliberately chose both paths.
The lines speak to finding your own way,
They also speak to transgression, that which is not permitted.
The question, ‘How do you insert something more than what is presented?’
Is the question of, how does one give life to a thing?
The blank space is something that interests me –
A fully-formed language leaves little of where it is still going
to the imagination.
Who is the person that took this path?
And those who followed?
(Igshaan Adams, Tapyt, 2024)
Tapyt is a limited-edition artist book by Igshaan Adams produced and published by A4 Arts Foundation, for release in June 2025. The artist speaks in Tapyt through a single thread of text. Each of the 31 books features a uniquely handwoven cover that references a past work or to one still to come.
Book
The book’s opening pages are laser-cut, revealing images of beads, thread, and wire.
These and other fragments serve as ellipsis, marking the continuation of a collaborative studio process between the artist and A4 that began during Adams’ four-month Open Production residency in late 2020.
Sections of transparent acetate, UV-printed and hand-stitched into the book, register traces gathered and archived by A4’s team across the project. The artist's studio directly draw or paint onto select pages.
Cover
Encased in bespoke woven slipcovers, each edition of Tapyt (2024) was woven in Igshaan Adams’ Cape Town studio and directly references an artwork (those past and others propositional). Experimenting with a variety of construction methods in numerous prototypes, Adams settled on a robust design of continuous weaving across the spine and cover boards – commensurate with his intricate methods and tactile sensibility.
Open Production (2020)
An enormous loom stands against one wall (the largest Igshaan Adams has yet to work on, utilising ceiling height and width of the gallery space), accompanied by the sound of beads being poured into buckets (the artist likens this process to the mixing of paint), as the strings of the loom vibrate with a music of their own.
Tapyt began with Igshaan Adams' residency, Open Production, in A4's Gallery.
On 14 June, 2025, the project opens with an installation of the 31 books in the edition and a conversation with Josh Ginsburg and Igshaan Adams in A4's Reading Room.
