forms of peering 2025/26

Around the time I began my internship at Slanted, I also joined forms of peering, a program initiated by the open book society e.V. that invited participants to rethink publishing through exchange and shared inquiry. In this text, I want to outline the framework of forms of peering and then reflect on how our peer group approached collaboration, writing, and questions of authorship.

The open book society has expanded the former Walter Tiemann Prize into a broader format titled forms of publication. It now includes three categories: printed publications, digital publications, and forms of peering. The first two continue to recognize outstanding work in print and digital publishing. Forms of peering takes a different direction. It centers on learning structures and collective exploration. The initiators wanted to create a place where people with shared interests in publishing and artistic research could gather and work through questions together.

Participants were selected by lottery from 104 applications and matched into small constellations based on proposed questions. Over several months, the program combined self-organized peer meetings with shared public lectures. Inputs came from KUNCI in Indonesia, who work with collective knowledge production; from Roman Gornitsky, whose practice encompasses type design and critical research; and from Bebe Books in Belgium, who approach publishing as a social and communal activity.

Our group was formed around a cluster of related questions. We were interested in what forms publishing might take if shaped as an evolving collective act, where process, dialogue, and hybrid mediums alternate acts? How collective work can hold space for both structure and fluidity, balancing rigor, care, and looseness, across different forms of collaboration, and how shared design processes shape visual communication.

These questions brought together Rana Wassef, a designer, curator, and educator based in Cairo; Joanne Cesario, a lens-based artist from Manila; and myself.

We met regularly, navigating time zones and different working rhythms. In the beginning, our conversations moved in many directions. We spoke about collaboration, about the role of care in collective work. After each meeting, we tried to translate parts of the discussion into small experiments. We exchanged books that had shaped our thinking and discussed how we might republish or recontextualize each other’s practices within our own environments. We considered working with postcards as a way of circulating ideas physically—but figured that Joanne would never receive them. We explored the idea of collectively designing and hoisting flags as a shared form of publishing, translating fragments of our conversations into visible gestures. Gradually, however, the dialogue itself became the material we were working with.

At some point, we began writing together. The text developed from fragments: quotes from books we admired, notes from our conversations, open questions. We collected everything in a shared Google doc, commented on each other’s contributions, rearranged sections, and condensed the material into five thematic clusters. The doc remains live and is embedded on our shared platform An Attempt to Collaborate. Writing collectively expanded our understanding of authorship. The comment function became part of the text and the document now reads like an ongoing negotiation of fragments and a non-linear train of thought.

What made forms of peering particularly meaningful was its experimental nature. There was no clearly defined outcome, no pressure to produce something measurable. That openness created a different kind of intensity. The value lay in the connections that formed. Getting in touch with designers and practitioners from different contexts and stages in their careers, exchanging working methods, doubts, and unfinished ideas. Seeing how others navigate their practice, whether early in their path or with years of experience behind them, added perspectives that would not have emerged in a more goal-driven setting.

The fact that we could decide whether to create something—or not—felt liberating. The possibility of output was always there, but it was never the obligation. Instead, what remained was a network of conversations and potential collaborations that can continue beyond the program itself.

We are grateful to the open book society and to Marion, Helene, and Jasper for organizing and hosting us in this first edition. The open book society will be part of It’s a Book in Leipzig, end of March. Should forms of peering return, it is a format worth joining, especially for those interested in publishing as a global, open and collaborative practice.

© Graphics by Roman Gornitsky