Performance for the book was conducted for the first time on November 29 2017 at the Jan van Eyck/Margaret van Eyck Academie in Maastricht.
This registration and documentation ended up in a book that is launched during the Open Studios.
Text from the publication Recherche | Research by Kunstraum Lakeside
An Onghena’s work with the programmatic title Performance for the Book is an investigation into the material, formal , and contextual requirements and conditions of bookmaking. The artist appropriates a standard large-format paper roll to tell of the potentiality of her material. By subjecting the paper to a variety of different transformation processes, Onghena not only demonstrates its possible aggregate states, she also reveals all of the agents involved in these states. In an interplay between artist, performer, exhibition space, instructions, the give properties of the material, and not least the observers, the paper is folded and becomes a collective act.
