Replika Publishing

Co-Founded by Freya Copeland and Youvalle Levy in Berlin in 2015, Replika Publishing is an independent publishing house producing work under two main branches; Replika Volumes and Replika Artist Books. Influenced by ‘Fluxus’, we explore new methods of exhibition through printed matter and book arts. We seek to provide artists with a platform which is indiscriminate when it comes to place, gender, and career, and one which is able to focus purely on conceptual engagement.

Replika Volumes are three dimensional, curated artist periodicals featuring the works of a selection of international artists and an artist catalogue which expands upon the edition with further contributors. With each issue, artists, writers, musicians and creators of all descriptions are invited to explore a given theme, and to respond with an object-based, serialised work.

Replika Artist Books are single artist/collective publications produced in close collaboration with selected artists with a particular focus of photography. From inception of the project through concept development, sequencing, layout, design, print and production to distribution and exhibition, Replika Artist Books are in small runs with a high attention to detail and materiality in order to best communicate the artist’s project. The outcome of each Replika Artist Book is an Art-Object of high conceptual and artistic content.

Our favourite way to meet new collaborators is at international art book fairs, come say hi, scribble your email or portfolio on a paper scrap for us. Alternatively, keep an eye on our instagram for our regular Open Calls. We aim to build a strong and close working relationship with all our writers and artists, and use tools like skype to foster such a relationship with people based elsewhere in the world. Diversity is important to us, we are looking for voices from all socio-economic, ethnic, gender etc backgrounds. Please feel free to approach us with any ideas you might have.

Replika Publishing also hosts workshops and exhibitions in our studio/gallery in Berlin Neukölln. Please sign up to our newsletter for updates.

Volume Two

Ellipse

Replika Publishing, 2017

A three dimensional Artist Edition bringing together artists from all spheres to explore an ellipse. With work from over 30 contributors, Ellipse is about passing information through a fragmented loop; as in a game of telephone, or a broken radio transistor. Ellipse is about passing information through a fragmented loop. Human relationships, in particular familial and marital, are explored through folding and rusting forms, the longing for connection with nature and urban spaces and the search for an art practice equivalent to a close friend’s embrace. The notion of a cyclical history of a precious material becoming commonplace. The female form retraced until almost all trace is lost. Mechanical attempts to counterfeit imagination.

Replika Volume 2: Ellipse is held in many public and private collections including Reminders Photography Stronghold, Tokyo and the MoMA Art Book Collection, New York.

Hamid Aaqil Shah (AF)
Mark Blickley (USA)
Chloe Brenan (IE)
Kami Bugnet (IL/DE)
Freya Copeland (UK/NZ/DE)
Karl Dieter Schmid (DE)
Eri Dimitriadi (GR)
JM Francis (NZ)
Rita Gaspar Vieira (PT)
Diane Hillebrand (DE)
Frie J. Jacobs (BE)
Nils Köpfer (DE)

Takuya Koyama (JP/DE)
Youvalle Levy (IL/DE)
Taizo Matsuyama (JP)
Jacintha Murphy (IE/DE)
Chris Morrin (IE/DE)
Ainsley O’Connell (NZ)
Ben Pearce (NZ)
Esther Poppe (DE/ZA)
Andrea Shettler (CA/DE)
Nuno Sousa Vieira (PT)
Toyah Webb (NZ)

Volume One

Echo

Replika Publishing, 2016

A three dimensional Artist Edition bringing together artists from all spheres to explore an echo. With work from over 10 contributors, Echo is about a close parallel to an idea, feeling, or event or, a characteristic that is suggestive of something else. Throughout the works, motifs recur. Such as the mirror and reflections, Traces of past lives, shifts between cyberspace and actual existence, and the lover who torments without requital.

Replika 1: Echo is held in many public and private collections including Reminders Photography Stronghold, Tokyo and the MoMA Art Book Collection, New York.

Johannes Arolt (DE)
Ana Barbu (RO)
Kami Bugnet (IL)
Anna Hanlon (NZ)
James Fuller (UK)
Taizo Matsuyama (JP)
Alexandra Neuman (US)
Matthias Numberger (DE)
Helen Rowlands (UK)
Ben Thomas (UK)

And Further text from:
Elisabeth Eichler (DE)
Chaveli Sifre (PRI)

Greek Dog Days

Greek Dog Days Ilja Niederkirchner
Replika Publishing, 2020

198mm x 140mm
132 Pages, Swiss Brochure binding, Riso-Graph printing in Black and Medium Blue
Eos 120gsm, Eos 260gsm and Munken Polar White 80gsm
1st edition of 250

Greek Dog Days is a shadowed meander through city streets and inter-city roads. Niederkirchner migrates from one desolate scene to the next as if he himself is one of the dogs; vagrant, aimless. Photographs of ghosts of Greece's past follow him as he documents Greece's present. While dark in nature, Niederkirchner’s photographs suggest also the country’s clean slate as it were; perhaps an opportunity for regrowth in a new, hopeful direction.

Wild and dusky with glimpses of affection, the Greece portrayed by Niedderkirchner is misted yet razor-sharp. Greek Dog Days invites us on an entrancing and ominous journey; walks past empty shops, as if abandoned, concrete rules over nature while the stereotype of clear blue greek skys is lacking. Only traces of life are present; laundry hanging from windows, but the people themselves are markedly absent. The dogs are unfaltering in their glare, showing their control.

Greek Dog Days was a recipient of the Volumes Zurich Award, 2020. Greek Dog Days is held in many public and private institutions including the Laimun Residency research Library. It has been reviewed on C4 journal and signed copies are also available from Cafe lehmitz Photo Book Store.

Weathering

Freya Copeland, Youvalle Levy
Replika Publishing, 2020

260mm x 180mm
24 Pages, Staple binding, digital offset printing with a photo card insert
Improved Newsprint, 55gsm
1st edition of 150

Weathering is the second in a series of visual conversations between the photographic artists Freya Copeland and Youvalle Levy. Weathering explores the existential dread, boredom and isolation experienced in many large cities. This time, the artists communicate, as if in written correspondence, over the great distance forced upon them during international lockdowns and border closures as a result of the 2020 pandemic. Views are confined by window frames and through chain link fences, stray cats stare back at the viewer with piercing eyes. Weathering is a creative endeavour to bridge physical distance, and by chance, the two artists, though at complete antipodes from each other, make many analogous observations.

Vanishing Song

Thomas Keller
Replika Publishing, 2020

210mm x 165mm
9 Pages, fold out to A2 with 4 color photograph inserts
Munken Print White 115gsm and Chromokarton 280gsm
1st edition of 500

Vanishing Song sees Thomas Keller repetitively visit scenes of importance from the life and work of Jack Kerouac. Reading Kerouac, Keller felt immediately absorbed by the vivid descriptions of locations which became intermingled with his complex emotions of joy and loss. Scenes of abandonment exude not just melancholie and loss, but the fallen timber in dappled light tell stories of the lives lived within what were once walls. In tracing the history of the place, Keller communicates a kind of anxious but hopeful sense of waiting for what will come next.

Vanishing Song was Launched at FK Kollektiv in Berlin, Germany in August 2020.

Kalt

Freya Copeland, Youvalle Levy
Replika Publishing, 2019

260mm x 180mm
24 Pages, Staple binding, digital offset printing in black and white with 4 full colour postcard inserts
Improved Newsprint, 55gsm
1st edition of 150

Kalt is a visual conversation between the photographic artists Freya Copeland and Youvalle Levy, exploring the existential dread, boredom and isolation experienced in many northern European cities, in particular Berlin. The artists communicate, as if in written correspondence, the longing for their native lands' warmth and light, while at the same time fighting against their native lands in order to find comfort in their adopted city.

Kalt has been exhibited in The PhotoBook Exhibition as part of Photo Athens 2019 in the Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece. Kalt is held in many public and private collections including Samoa House Library, Auckland, New Zealand.

Footfalls Echo

Freya Copeland,
Replika Publishing, 2019

205mmx144mm
80 pages, hand smyth sewn binding, digital offset printing in full colour with a 16 page stitch and knot hand bound insert booklet.
1st edition: 21 copies, 2018
This 2nd Edition: 150 copies, 2019
Munken Print Cream 90gsm and 115gsm

Footfalls Echo explores loneliness and disconnection suffered in major modern cities as the internet promises ever increasing opportunities to connect. The book is bound and presented as a personal diary, tracing movements and thoughts through a city promising to be your friend while at the same time rejecting you at each turn.

Footfallsotography Magazine, Berlin, 2018 and exhibited at Strange Goods, Auckland, New Zealand, 2020. Footfalls Echo is held in many public and private collections including Samoa House Library, Auckland, New Zealand.