“EL PLIEGO/ LE PLI/ A FOLDER” is a teaching and research project that has brought together a selection of students, teachers and artists linked to graphic art and editing studios and research groups from different universities and training centres.
Types of Folders: A dialogue Anne Heyvaert / Maria Prada
“From the folder is born a form of thought, the dialectic, articulated to the rhythm of the facing, flicked, and turned pages”.
Michel Melot
The book as a symbolic form, (which is what the folder thinks).
Reckoning art from the space of the book means recognising this format with its own history and functions as an alternative to the conventional spaces of art. It is about relocating practice and artistic transmission from the formal and symbolic possibilities of the book by assimilating the sense of its base module, the folder. This simple device has assisted and defined knowledge for centuries, and today serves artistic practice, understood as a means of exploring the complexity of reality.
The codex bases its value and establishes its irresistible usefulness (versus other older forms of written communication such as the papyrus roll or tablets) because it was established historically as an autonomous object in which content and support are united. Hence, the homogeneous and stable structure of the book is able to grant both material and temporal unity to the whole. The articulation of the folder in the book gives rise to a way of thinking, the continuous in discontinuity, which is configured to the rhythm of the regular and opposite page breaks.
As Michel Melot notes, it seems that digital technology has permitted that the book be released from its contents and rescued from its morphology. This release relates to the tendency to explore the formal aspects of the book in new artistic proposals that start from the articulation of the folder: “An operation which in turn is plastic and poetic, material and intellectual, area and volume”.
With these premises, we intend to observe the creative possibilities of the folder within book-art, through the metaphor of a conversation established between the folders of a book in a confrontation dialogue with its pages.

Objective:
The aim was to promote cultural circulation through graphic editing, and confer value to the book format from its base module, THE FOLDER.
We invited participants to intervene on a sheet of paper folded in two and use graphic techniques and other resources to generate multiple images for publication in several copies.

Presentations and activities:
The dx5 group wanted to disseminate the project to the public ever since its inception, through presentations at different forums and in the different stages.
This project has led to activities that have gone beyond exhibitions and have consisted of various project presentations made by the dx5 group at meetings in schools and centres, as well as through participation in meetings, debates and round table sessions.

With the participation of: – 11 countries,
– 17 centres,
– 224 folders
– 189 participating artists
– 26 centre coordinators
– 16 exhibitions held between February 2017 and February 2018 around the world.
More than 10 people from dx5 (University of Vigo) involved in organisation of the folders.

These presentations have facilitated discussion and sharing with (not necessarily artistic) groups linked to the university world and with those linked to art creation and training. Some of these activities are:
CAMPUS CREA
LOCATION: Casa das Campás. Vice-rectorate of the Pontevedra Campus EVENT: Teaching Projects Presentation Day. Campus Crea DATE: 21 April 2017

MEETING with Université de Trois Rivières, Quebec, Canada.
LOCATION: Engraving studio of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Pontevedra, University of Vigo. EVENT: Meeting between the Département de Philosophie et des Arts of the University of Trois-Rivières, Quebec, Canada, and Faculty of Fine Arts in Pontevedra.
DATE: 20 June 2017

MEETING in Madrid
LOCATION: Aula Max of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Complutense University, Madrid. EVENT: Open, splash, close. Navigate the folder.
DATE: 18 October 2017
COORDINATION: Carmen Hidalgo de Cisneros Wilkens (LAMP Group, Complutense University)

MEETING in Porto
LOCATION: O Museu, Pav. Central Faculdade de Belas Artes University of Porto. EVENT: EDITING MODES. Heritage, Technology, Frontiers.
DATE: 25 October 2017
COORDINATION: Graciela Machado (i2ads/FBAUP).

PRESENTATION EVENT
Un livre se fait rarement tout seul…
LOCATION: Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Liège
DATE: 22 February 2017

PRESENTATION EVENT
IV Symposium “From Typography to Book-Art”. Clavijero Cultural Centre, Morelia, Michoacán de Ocampo, Mexico.
LOCATION: Institute of Architecture Design and Art, Autonomous University of Ciudad Juarez
DATE: 24 May 2017

PRESENTATION EVENT
Round table session “The artist’s book unfolded”. The project EL PLIEGO/LE PLI/A FOLDER as a teaching resource and research strategy.
LOCATION: Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Vigo, Pontevedra, Spain. DATE:28 April 2017

PRESENTATION EVENT
THE FOLDER International Exchange Project.
LOCATION: Lecture Hall of the University Pavilion, Mingsun Campus, National Chiayi University. National Chiayi Hsien University, Taiwan
DATE: 17 May 2017

PRESENTATION EVENT
Navigate the folder: Open, splash, close.
LOCATION: Aula Max of the Faculty of Fine Arts, UCM, Madrid, Spain. DATE: 18 October 2017

PRESENTATION EVENT
EDITING MODES. Heritage, Technology, Frontiers.
PLACE: OMuseu, Pav. Central Faculdade de Belas Artes University of Porto ATTENDEES: Ana Soler and Anne Heyvaert (dx5 group), Graciela Machado (i2ads/FBAUP), Rui Vitorino (ID+ /FBAUP) and Nuno Coelho (CEIS20-UC / DEI-FCTUC).
DATE: 25 October 2017