SONNENZIMMER
How to Begin
A space.
There’s a hand inside your head.
When you wake up in the morning, it’s the first thing to touch the sky.
The hand can’t tell you what to do or where to go, but it always casts a shadow onto the world.
The hand is not your friend or enemy, but it can change the way you see things.
Now, imagine the hand
and place it on a table
in front of you.
The hand traces your thoughts.
When you need them again, the hand is there.
While the hand is not your friend and not your enemy,
it can show you the future.
Grab a piece of paper and a pencil.
On the paper draw circles.
Keep drawing circles until
they completely populate you.
Now, place a memory inside each circle.
Once you run out of memories,
you are ready to
begin.
Sonnenzimmer is an experimental graphic studio founded by artists Nick Butcher and Nadine Nakanishi in 2006. Our collaborative work explores the historic role of the graphic mark and the contemporary graphic impulse through publishing, exhibitions, design, and performance. While we work in an array of media, our focus is on triangulating a deeper understanding of graphic expression at large. In addition to our self-driven work, we actively engage in commissioned projects aiming to reshape preconceived notions of the graphic arts. Our work has been shown in The United States, Brazil, China, and Europe; with recent solo exhibitions at Vebikus Kunsthalle Schaffhausen, Switzerland, and Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee. As working graphic artists, we aim to continually build new partnerships with individuals, initiatives, and cultural producers. Our practice relies on the interplay between commissioned projects and our own exhibition and publishing efforts. As a studio, we thrive where expression, service, experimentation, and form collide. When we are all ready to look at our own graphic mark, own up to how it looks, learn to embrace it, feel compelled to live with it, the world will start to look like home for everybody.