5 Benches by 019

Size : 248x285x21mm
Contents : 140p
Print : Offset
Edition : 500 copies
Design : ori.studio
Language : English, Japanese, Chinese
Publisher : ori.studio
Date : 2026.06.12
ISBN 978-1-0688196-5-0

About :

The intensive sedimentation of material traces—arising from a multiplicity of relations, contexts, and moments in time—gives rise to objects that express the collective conditions of their becoming. Using benches as a focal element, the Belgian collective 019 has created a series of five works, to be shown first in Tokyo and Beijing, each composed using materials and methods drawn from former projects: metal grates, slabs of cardboard, aquatic plants, inflatable structures, as articulations of the ways of working which resulted in both these objects and the projects from which they emerged.

While structurally aligning itself with the five benches through its division into five sections, this book extends the project by shifting attention from the relations between compound object and project to the wider web of relations and commonalities between former projects themselves—a complex network of recurring details, structures, materials, and objects that appear and reappear like apparitions across a shared temporal and spatial field. Incorporating images of the five benches on its surfaces, the five folder-like units that make up the book are bound together through a series of half-circle interlocking inserts that can be taken apart or connected. Each fold opens to collectively reveal images of over 80 projects and works across 140 pages. The cover completes this structure by interlocking with both the first and last module, while also carrying a trilingual essay that conveys the reasoning, intent, and trajectory of the project from the perspective of 019.