With Pick up this book we (ADA) seeked to address questions that emerged in the periphery of our collective practice, but became a pivotal interest, concerning hospitality and the documentation of our often ephemeral research based projects. The publication includes work by two thinkers who have provided us with ideas, which profoundly shaped our thinking and formed a continuous presence during our working period in Berlin: the text Hostipitality by Jacques Derrida and Unbounded, Limit’s Possibilities, a lecture by Irit Rogoff, of which a transcription is included. Focusing on a breakfast discussion we organised as ADA in Berlin, we set ourselves the task of writing from memory what happened on that day, resulting in six completely different reports, meandering between facts, associative sidetracks and interesting notions that had come up during the event. These texts are complemented by the writer and artist Maria Barnas, whom we asked to be present at the breakfast and write her response to the event. The book is presented in the exhibition space at Kunstverein Göttingen and is activated by means of instructional sentences mounted onto the walls, which, drawing on the content of the book, spatially frame it. Pick up this book is designed by Dongyoung Lee.
Deirdre M. Donoghue 
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