The fourteenth part of the exhibition Seen By #14: Imprinted Matter, curated by Nina Prader, took place digitally and could be viewed virtually. The exhibition in the format of an online reading room raised questions of representation, in reference to the Art Library and the UdK research project Intersectional Matter. “Seen By” is an exhibition cooperation between the Art Library of the National Museums in Berlin and the UdK Berlin in the Museum of Photography.

The reading room created a forum. “Printed Matters” are an intersectional tool for exchange, questions and distribution. The book and the space merge in act and situation. The artist Barbara Kruger speaks on behalf of Printer Matter Inc. – the largest art bookstore with an archive in New York – of “Printed Matter matters”. Especially in digitalized and insecure times, printed matter gains importance because it calls for peaceful reflection. The spectrum of “Printed Matter” contains a wide range of content.

These avant-garde publications express the voices, identities, healing processes and struggles of their editors. They were created in independent collectives, free editorial offices, and from a publication and poetry workshop with Christoph Balzar and Lahya Aukongo at the Berlin University of the Arts. What all these publications have in common is that they make the invisible visible, determine themselves and question existing structures.

Magazines make themselves heard, such as the N*A*I*L*S collective, which imagines the nail salon as a queer place for intersectional care policies, and the damn* zine/German asian* women, make noise! The street journal Arts of the Working Class (AWC) appeals to many with its name and contributions by artists* in various languages. Issue 9 WHO CARES deals specifically with the topic of care and includes a care questionnaire by editor Alina Kolar and a contribution about a UdK workshop by intersectional matter contributors.

It also includes queer feminist manifestos, poetry about freedom, autobiographical comics and fanzines about feelings, vulnerability, trauma management, autonomous health and alternative medicine. There are pamphlets printed with the DIY Risograph printer and a decolonized artist’s book that visually reveals Pizzaro’s colonization of Peru.