James Taylor-Foster
Selected writing 2015 – 2023
  • About
  • Category
  • Title
  • Publication
  • Year
  • Publications
  • ✶ softspot
  • 2021
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2023
  • ✶ softspot
Fig 1. softspot by James Taylor-Foster and OK-RM (Max Creasy, 2021)


softspot (InOtherWords) is a family of thoughts and observations made during 2020 and 2021. Conceived in a state of fragmented flow, an unsteady portrait of a year emerges. Drifting through field notes and fears, recent histories and cosmic concerns, it is a thing as nebulous as it is precise.

softspot is a fragile space seeking to make sense of a complex now. Through a collaborative process of editing and exchange between OK-RM and James Taylor-Foster, it is a dive into the recent past. Imagined as a container for the near and the close, the project contains a patchwork of prose, verse and visual work that oscillate between the subjective and the objective. Written through the lens of one writer and augmented by a conversation of contributions and references, the book represents a study in how words can be written – and how they can be held in a hand.

Each softspot contains three copies of the same book. You’re invited to keep one and to gift the others as you wish.



Fig 2. A container for the near and close (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 3. Cover I: Reality is jarring, reality can be fickle (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 4. Cover II: We must be carried, clasped or quelled (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 5. Cover III: Fitting in is a little like falling into being (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 6. The moon affects consciousness in ways that can be dispelled as myth or madness (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)


Conceived of and compiled between London, Stockholm, Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam with Esther Cloe Theaker, Max Creasy, Rosita Kær, Smari R. Robertsson, Tony Karlsson Savci, and Michela Zoppi.

Referencing words or work by: Yarō Abe, Safdar Abidi, Wilson A. Bentley, Ingmar Bergman, Michael Brill, Martin Buber, Kate Bush, Robert V. Guzowski, Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, Herman Hesse, bell hooks, Stephen C. Hora, Robin Kimmerer Wall, Even Kjelby, Ludwig Mattsson, Walter McClintock, Meg Miller/Are.na Channel Good Sign-Offs, J. Fr. Neveau, Priya Parker, Rick Smith, George Steiner, Greta Thunberg, Kathleen M. Trauth, Simone Weil, Frans Wiklund, and William Wordsworth.



Fig 7. softspot spread (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 8. softspot spread (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 9. These words are hesitant: there are gaps (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 10. softspot spines (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 11. softspot, spread (Max Creasy, 2021)

Fig 12. softspot (Johan Dehlin, 2021)

Fig 13. softspot (Johan Dehlin, 2021)

Fig 14. softspot (Johan Dehlin, 2021)


There is so much nowness to the now, in which the future seems impossible and all before a frail fiction.


First edition of 1000 (×3)
ISBN: 978-1-9160024-8-7
406pp, 137×75×86mm
August 2021
softspot is available from InOtherWords and where books are sold.
Typeset in ABC Rom by Seb McLauchlan
Printed by KOPA
Supported by Dinamo
Photography by Max Creasy, Johan Dehlin

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James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
  • CuratorialI.
  • ProjectsII.
  • PublicationsIII.
  • SpeakingIV.
  • WritingV.
I.Curatorial
  • ✶ WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, London2022
  • ✶ Mira Bergh × Josefin Zachrisson: Utomhusverket2022
  • ✶ The Limits of Our World: LARP and Design2022
  • ✶ Solicited: Proposals2021
  • ✶ Studio Ossidiana: Utomhusverket2021
  • WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD, Stockholm2020
  • Architecture Projects: Skeppsbron + Brunnsparken2019
  • Cruising Pavilion: Architecture, Gay Sex, Cruising Culture2019
  • The Craft of Swedish Videogame Design2019
  • Petra Gipp and Mikael Olsson; Sigurd Lewerentz – Freestanding2018
  • Space Popular: Value in the Virtual2018
  • You Are Not Alone2017
  • In Therapy2016
  • Keeping Up Appearances2015
II.Projects
  • ASMR, An Exhibition Trailer2022
  • Watch & Chill 2.0: Streaming Senses2022
  • ASMRology2021
  • Plug-in Poesi2020
  • Interdependence: Stockholm and pandemia2020
  • Future Architecture Rooms2020
  • SOFT GOSSIP2020
  • Mukbang Veneziano2020
  • Körper2019
  • Architecture on Display2018
  • Boxen at ArkDes2018
  • The Stones of Venice: A Kimono2017
  • Misunderstandings (A Reliquary)2016
III.Publications
  • ✶ softspot2021
  • Living on Water2017
  • Elemental Living2016
  • People, Place, Purpose2015
IV.Speaking
  • ✶ Scaffold #612022
  • Salons, The New Architecture School2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: A Bed2022
  • OAT Academy, Curating Architecture2022
  • ✶ Protagonist of the Erotic: An Island2021
  • A Future for Exhibitions2021
  • Future Architecture CEx2020 Focus Talks2020
  • Modevisningar är den flyktigaste formen av arkitektur2018
  • Exhibition Models2017
V.Writing
  • Wang & Söderström: Royal Chambers2023
  • Studio Ossidiana on the Sentimental Scale of the City2022
  • A Strange Sort of Weight2021
  • What’s Mine Is Theirs: an interview with Max Lamb2020
  • ✶ Screen Glow Sedation2020
  • No Time to Stand and Stare2020
  • On Norra Tornen2020
  • ✶ Don’t Fear a Snowflake2020
  • In Riga, A Conference On Architecture and Migration2019
  • On Practical Futurology2019
  • Foreword: On the Manifesto2019
  • Making Believe with Charlap Hyman & Herrero2019
  • ✶ To Speak As If In Capital Letters2019
  • Baltoscandia: A Complex Utopia2018
  • ✶ Virgil Abloh, Editor in Brief2018
  • A Weak Monument2018
  • Sigurd Lewerentz: Villa Edstrand2018
  • On the Cruising Pavilion2018
  • A Diary of Virgil Abloh’s First Louis Vuitton Show2018
  • ✶ The Boat is Leaking. The Captain Lied.2018
  • Concrete Mountain2017
  • ✶ On Liquid Modernity2017
  • ✶ #003399, #FFCC00; The Meaning of a Flag2017
  • Pillars of Society: “Jantelagen”2017
  • Exhibiting the Postmodern2017
  • Future Architecture and the Idea of Europe2017
  • Domains of Influence2017
  • Ingress: Black Rock City2017
  • In Dialogue With Gravity2017
  • Rem, Redacted2016
  • Media States, Or The State of Media2016
  • A Piece of England to Call One’s Own2016
  • Upon This Rock (I Will Build My Church)2016
  • The Design of the Species2016
  • Venice Isn’t Sinking, It’s Flooding2016
James Taylor-Foster
editor & writer of essays & reviews,
architectural designer,
maker of exhibitions
Selected writing 2015 – 2023
Publications
  • ✶ softspot 2021
  • with OK-RM (Rory McGrath, Anton Weflö, Paul Bergès); Esther Cloe Theaker, Max Creasy, Rosita Kær, Smari R. Robertsson, Tony Karlsson Savci, Michela Zoppi; Dinamo + Seb McLauchlan
Back
Fig 1. softspot by James Taylor-Foster and OK-RM (Max Creasy, 2021)


softspot (InOtherWords) is a family of thoughts and observations made during 2020 and 2021. Conceived in a state of fragmented flow, an unsteady portrait of a year emerges. Drifting through field notes and fears, recent histories and cosmic concerns, it is a thing as nebulous as it is precise.

softspot is a fragile space seeking to make sense of a complex now. Through a collaborative process of editing and exchange between OK-RM and James Taylor-Foster, it is a dive into the recent past. Imagined as a container for the near and the close, the project contains a patchwork of prose, verse and visual work that oscillate between the subjective and the objective. Written through the lens of one writer and augmented by a conversation of contributions and references, the book represents a study in how words can be written – and how they can be held in a hand.

Each softspot contains three copies of the same book. You’re invited to keep one and to gift the others as you wish.



Fig 2. A container for the near and close (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 3. Cover I: Reality is jarring, reality can be fickle (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 4. Cover II: We must be carried, clasped or quelled (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 5. Cover III: Fitting in is a little like falling into being (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 6. The moon affects consciousness in ways that can be dispelled as myth or madness (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)


Conceived of and compiled between London, Stockholm, Berlin, Copenhagen and Amsterdam with Esther Cloe Theaker, Max Creasy, Rosita Kær, Smari R. Robertsson, Tony Karlsson Savci, and Michela Zoppi.

Referencing words or work by: Yarō Abe, Safdar Abidi, Wilson A. Bentley, Ingmar Bergman, Michael Brill, Martin Buber, Kate Bush, Robert V. Guzowski, Jacob Heinrich Elbfas, Herman Hesse, bell hooks, Stephen C. Hora, Robin Kimmerer Wall, Even Kjelby, Ludwig Mattsson, Walter McClintock, Meg Miller/Are.na Channel Good Sign-Offs, J. Fr. Neveau, Priya Parker, Rick Smith, George Steiner, Greta Thunberg, Kathleen M. Trauth, Simone Weil, Frans Wiklund, and William Wordsworth.



Fig 7. softspot spread (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 8. softspot spread (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 9. These words are hesitant: there are gaps (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 10. softspot spines (OK-RM × James Taylor-Foster)

Fig 11. softspot, spread (Max Creasy, 2021)

Fig 12. softspot (Johan Dehlin, 2021)

Fig 13. softspot (Johan Dehlin, 2021)

Fig 14. softspot (Johan Dehlin, 2021)


There is so much nowness to the now, in which the future seems impossible and all before a frail fiction.


First edition of 1000 (×3)
ISBN: 978-1-9160024-8-7
406pp, 137×75×86mm
August 2021
softspot is available from InOtherWords and where books are sold.
Typeset in ABC Rom by Seb McLauchlan
Printed by KOPA
Supported by Dinamo
Photography by Max Creasy, Johan Dehlin

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