*70 copies limited edition* Paratexts, by definition, are everything that stands beside (‘para’ in Greek) the main content of a work, or the so-called “body text” of a book. The reading performance Sounding Out (Reading Paratexts) explores this “beside” as a site and sounds out paratexts as testimonies of the labour and collective efforts behind the making of a book. What kind of bodies emerge when we read dedications, acknowledgements, colophons or editorial notes? They can unsettle the notion of singular authorship and unearth moments of collaboration and social processes of exclusion from literary production.

Ulrich Nixdorff draw on textual material they find in libraries and archives. These places themselves make for a paratext to the reading: How did the collections they visit emerge, and what brought the artist duo there? For the reading performance Sounding Out (Reading Paratexts), most of their findings have been collected during an artist residency at the Swiss-based library Andreas Züst, which became the starting point to map out the literary network of queer and women artists and writers in 20th century German-speaking Switzerland and their transnational connections.

Monique Ulrich and Tabea Nixdorff have been collaborating as the artist duo Ulrich Nixdorff since 2018, conducting research in multiple archives and libraries, and turning it into reading performances.