Temporary Bookshop XIX
Marie Ilse Bourlanges
25 June – 29 June 2025

Looiersgracht 60 is pleased to present Temporary Bookshop XIX alongside je file un fil pour ma fille, a new installation and performance by Amsterdam-based artist Marie Ilse Bourlanges for the ninth edition of our Archive Event Series Program. This edition marks Bourlanges’ third participation in the program, following Shelf-Life II (2019) and Honeycombing VII (2022). Marie Ilse Bourlanges is a multidisciplinary artist working with materials, narrative, and performance across both collaborative and individual trajectories. Her research-driven approach bridges formal and conceptual inquiries, drawing on personal experience to explore broader social and ecological themes. Central to her practice is an interest in how intimacy might carry collective resonance, particularly where tension and power dynamics emerge—and how relational dynamics, between humans and across species shift, dissolve, or reconfigure over time. The formats she explores span large-scale installations, sculptural works, voice-based performances, text- and audio-based publications, and video works.

Initiated by Looiergsracht 60, the bookshop offers a literary backdrop for those seeking to explore the exhibition’s central themes more deeply. Inviting viewers to delve deeper into her practice and the conceptual framework behind je file un fil pour ma fille, this curated selection of handpicked titles and publications that touch on themes of ecofeminism, bringing together environmental concerns, gender politics, labour conditions, resource exploitation, and interspecies relations — questioning the complex and sometimes contradictory role of care.

Featured alongside these titles is a limited-edition artist booklet titled ‘Thread-like growth on animated beings’, available in 50 copies. Printed in Riso and delicately assembled by hand, this piece gives form to a mode of embodied knowledge through acts of gathering, sensing, and assembling that precede the archive.

Thread-like growth on animated beings, Bourlanges, 2025, self-published, riso-printed at Terry Bleu 16p, 20x28cm, English

Available Books:

Briggs, K. (2023). The Long Form. Fitzcarraldo Editions.
Cluitmans, L., & Ten Cate, H. (Eds.). (2025). Mothering Myths: An ABC of Art, Birth and Care. Valiz.
Coulthard, S. (2020). A Short History of the World According to Sheep. Apollo.
Davey, M. (Ed.). (2001). Mother Reader: Essential Writings on Motherhood. Seven Stories Press.
Haraway, D. J. (2008). When Species Meet. University of Minnesota Press.
Henrot, C. (2023). Milkyways. Hatje Cantz.
Meijer, E. (2019). When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy. NYU Press.
Nelson, M. (2015). The Argonauts. Graywolf Press.
Shafak, E. (2011). Black Milk: On the Conflicting Demands of Writing, Creativity, and Motherhood. Penguin Books.
Studio Formafantasma. (2023). Oltre Terra. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam.