By IC-98 and Temporary Services/Half Letter Press
Turku, Finland: IC-98, 2009
Pages: 36
Dimensions: 5” in x 6.9” in
Cover: soft
Binding: perfect bound
Process: offset
Color: color cover, some color pages, b&w throughout
Edition Size: 300
ISBN: 978-952- 67122-5-3

This book was made to document a public project we realized with IC-98, in Turku, Finland, in 2009.

Here is our description of the project:

Everything in Turku, Finland, as in most cities, is in its predictable and expected place. Bikes lean against walls, signs hang on stores, advertisements are pasted on poles, and every fixture has an obvious function. The public art is predictable too. It's made from durable materials; it looks like it has been around forever and will stay around forever.

As a small but visible challenge to this tedious routine, the groups IC-98 (Turku) and Temporary Services (Chicago) have teamed up to build and circulate a series of 25 wooden sandwich board signs which carry phrases that advertise nothing and aren't always terribly positive. Many of the texts, written collaboratively by the two groups, point to our frustration with the monotony of city spaces and the high degree of political control that is exerted over them.

Not wanting to make something as fixed or permanent as the situations we are critical of, we have made the signs lightweight and given them handles. Passersby are free to move the signs as they wish. Our placements of them can be viewed as suggestions. We've created a situation that we can't control, just as we don't wish to be controlled by others.

The fantastic design work on the book was done by IC-98.