Visiting the Two Pages Project: A Decade of Sketchbooks Connecting Artists Worldwide

A lively indoor gathering at KesselsKramer in London. Night time outside. People engaged in conversation. The room has exposed brick walls, large windows, and a projector screen in the background. Attendees, dressed casually, are chatting, smiling, and gesturing. In the foreground, a man holds a drink while speaking to another person, and a woman with long hair waves while talking to a friend. A person in a red cap stands near the back.

Empty sketchbooks sent to cities around the world. For a decade. Returned filled with variety. Marks made by artists.

I loved catching the Two Pages Project panel discussion at KesselsKramer while I was in London, before my train home last night.

The project founders, Konstantinos Trichas and Dionysis Livanis have now started inviting curators to assemble Two Pages Displays from the 1000 artworks returned so far.

Two curators were featured on yesterday’s panel, hosted by Grace Tijdink: Ellen Turnill Montoya and Carlos Romo-Melgar. It focused on connecting with the pictures artists had made.

And I was so pleased it focused on that.

Many panels I go to prioritise biography over the encounters with work. Maybe we hesitate to talk about what images do to us? It was really great to hear creative professionals speak about finding things friendly, funny, moving, seeing dots became faces: connecting with those marks on a page.

The artist made a mark to connect.

Great to see Dionysis, who I had the pleasure of working with on some projects recently. And to bump into some former agency colleagues in the audience before catching my train back to York.

The late journey began with a cheerful “choo choo!” from the driver over the speaker.

I imagine he was taken with a desire to connect.
I smiled.
It worked.

That’s making a mark.

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