&soWalter

&soWalter (usw.) is a riso printing press and small publisher run by Benjamin Hickethier and based at Consulatet in Stavanger. “With a nod to the one and only Walter Benjamin, &soWalter produces a dizzying array of fanzines, comics, booklets, posters, flyers, and anything and everything in between for what seems to be the whole of Stavanger. Hickethier also produces his own works on the press, often as small booklets which he slyly gives away, with topics ranging from planning ideal cities to praising laziness to estatically free visual experiments. When looking at the whole of &soWalter’s unique production, immediacy and community are ever-present themes.” (Jessica Williams)

Consulatet is a cooperative of culture workers in Stavanger, consisting of 14 members: visual artists, printers, musicians, filmmakers, writers, fashion designers and artisans.

Byverksted is a citizen-led initiative for bottom-up urban practice, exploring participatory methods and community engagement. Sharing of knowledge and self-empowerment through self-publication are important elements of Byverksted’s activities. Byverksted has published a series of about thirty zines in A6 format concerning different practice-related issues.

Villhund is a publishing project by Arild Rein and Benjamin Hickethier. Villhund forlag is emphasizing on short texts and publishing in a chapbook tradition, either translations of text that have not been easily accessible in Norwegian before (by authors such as de Sade, Lafargue, K. Le Guin, Orton) or that have not been published before at all. Villhund has two series, one of them (0,00-series) is more experimental in content and form. Production of the books is diy and done by Rein and Hickethier, sometimes with collaborators.