Prepositions enacts a distinction between what language says and what it does. A catalogue of
exercises, interviews, essays and creative explorations, this workbook-compendium invites the
reader to investigate how we practise empathy, understanding, and contact, by learning and
teaching all at once. Building on the archive of Montez Press Radio show Tongue and Cheek, and
featuring work from a stellar cast of previous participants in the broader project, Prepositions
asks us what active and embodied participation really means, not just in teaching, but across a
whole life.
This book will change your body—and your mind. Prepositions is a set of bite-sized propositions
for being and thinking otherwise. Put it under your tongue and see what happens.
— Leah Pires
This compendium of witty exercises, moving personal reflections, curious propositions, and carefully
selected graphics invites readers to explore what it means to inhabit a book. It is the product
of many hands, a polyphonic choir, filled with immense care and a deep sense of friendship. As
one feels its weight, moves around it, folds its pages, breaths with it, or reads it out aloud, one
begins to wonder: what does the book need to be completed?
Prepositions—inscribed in the tradition of works as disparate as Robert Filliou’s Teaching and
Learning as Performing Arts and CAConrad’s poetry rituals—is an exercise of radical pedagogy
and readership. Everyone who enters this book becomes part of its contents.
— Alice Centamore
Timmy Simonds is an artist who moves between object-making, writing, routines of caretaking, and participatory exercises. Through the fictional character of a teacher he calls MISS OTHMAR, Simonds examines the cultural expectations, nuances, and vulnerabilities inherent in the practice of teaching. This character animates objects and is also found in faculty meetings and workshops. He is currently developing a curriculum for the Miss Othmar School for Teachers, which will be housed at Montez Press Radio’s broadcast studio.
Aaron Lehman is an artist and designer living in Maine. His work attempts to understand art, language,
and technology primarily as material processes that are both necessary for and byproducts
of communication, through which we extend the self and body, and expand the potential
for different types of contact. His work has been exhibited in NYC, London, and Mexico, and his
collaborative radio work with Timothy Simonds airs on Montez Press Radio and WGXC Wave Farm.
Contributors
Assembly, CAConrad, Thom Donovan, Joseph Grigely, Bethany Ides, Thomas Laprade, Shaun Leonardo, Ona Lindquist, Ben Morgan-Cleveland, and Malcolm Peacock.
Prepositions was in part supported by Pratt Institute's Faculty Development Fund awarded to Timmy Simonds in 2021 for his collaborative research with Aaron Lehman.
ISBN 978-3-945247-33-4
Year: 2024
Format: 210 × 297 mm
Binding: Perfect Bound
Pages: 516
Price: £ 40.00