Manifold Books
Kraijenhoffstraat 34, 1018RL Amsterdam
Please note: the entrance is located in the corridor between number 30 and 32

Until May 16 we are open by appointment. Regular opening hours (during exhibitions only): Fridays and Saturdays from 1-5 pm, or make an appointment via e-mail or Instagram 


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Manifold Books #31
Carrying morning on their tongues 
JJJJJerome Ellis
16/05/'26-11/07/'26

Opening 
16/05/'26, 4-6pm


Dear reader,

We would like to invite you to the opening of Carrying morning on their tongues, an exhibition by JJJJJerome Ellis. This exhibition presents four bodies of work that enact and channel the embodied experience of time on various scales; here, time is a river, an exposure, a musical note, or a breath.

A music album and artist's book, The Clearing (2021), together with Aster of Ceremonies (2023), a book of hymns presented here alongside the audiobook, attune with great sensitivity to the relationship between the time of reading and the time of listening. Through JJJJJerome's experiments with notation, transcription, and audio description, multiple visual and auditory layers converge and diverge. Alongside these works, a selection of photographs from the series Exposure (2024-) and the video 251218 (2024) introduce two distinct timelines, unfolding in an uneven rhythm around the asymmetrical architecture of Manifold Books.

'What is a clock? Is it an instrument? A body with hands and a face? A capitalist rosary?' asks JJJJJerome in The Clearing. 'What is a syllable? A bell held on a glottal hilltop? The indestructable? A gathering of sound (...) What is a bell? Why is it that the same bell that calls us to prayer and meditation called the enslaved to the field? Can black song heal these traumas arising from time and sound? How can we create gentler, more humane clocks?'

JJJJJerome's work reverberates in the gap between personal memory and histories of colonisation and resistance—histories that were poorly and partially documented and that require another kind of historiography, or rather, another approach to the past: one that looks to human and non-human ancestors for guidance and dislodges time from its linear course, tied to productivity and extraction. 'My thesis is that blackness, dysfluency and music are forces that open time,' offers JJJJJerome.

See you soon,
Manifold Books





About our current year programme Of Ghosts and Flowers
Of Ghosts and Flowers proposes a transition from our 2024 programme The Sphinx's Riddle around grief and transformation to an exhibition and event series about non-linear time experiences in 2025 and 2026. The urgency for this arose from the content of this programme, and how the system of linear time imposed on us disintegrates in the face of death, grief and profound mental and physical transformative processes. In addition, it feels urgent to formulate alternative forms of dealing with time because our system of linear time is linked to our growth-oriented economic system; the biggest driver of climate change. The embodied sensations we will look into include non-human perspectives as well as human ones. Of Ghosts and Flowers departs from the work of Rosemary Mayer (1943-2014). So far, the programme includes exhibitions and projects by Rosemary Mayer, Steve Kado, Clem Edwards, Francisca Khamis Giacoman and Arefeh Riahi. Since March 6, the first iteration of Be My Ghost by Arefeh Riahi is installed in our staircase. The second and third episodes will be released over the coming months, parallel to the opening hours of Carrying morning on their tongues and other upcoming activities. 



Thanks to SB34, Erfan Abdi, Lara Khaldi and Radio Alhara. 

Carrying morning on their tongues and Be My Ghost have been made possible by:
Stroom Den Haag, Mondriaan Fonds and AFK



Sadly, we are currently unable to process any unsolicited project proposals.


~So far, Manifold Books has organized shows/projects with: Francisca Khamis Giacoman, Steve Kado, Clem Edwards, Rosemary Mayer, Natalia Papaeva, Philipp Gufler/the Paul Hoecker Research Group, Dagmar Bosma, Katja Mater, Daniel Godínez-Nivón, Ana Navas, Marianna Maruyama, Nicoline van Harskamp, Selma Selman, Dan Zhu, Ada M. Patterson, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Isabelle Sully and Matt Hinkley (Unbidden Tongues), Hadassah Emmerich, Eileen Quinlan, Melissa Gordon, To See the Inability to See, Ada Van Hoorebeke, Kato Six, Riet Wijnen, Patricia Esquivias, Aglaia Konrad, Özlem Altın, Gwenneth Boelens, Barbara Neves Alves, Baha Görkem Yalım, Martín La Roche Contreras, Dongyoung Lee, Maartje Fliervoet

Each of these artists have made unique book editions, see a selection of photos



About Manifold Books
Founded in 2015 by Maartje Fliervoet in her Amsterdam studio space, Manifold Books’ activities may be best described as a spatial investigation exploring connections between art and books. With each exhibition a few titles are added to its book collection (all including artists’ interventions). Manifold Books has received funding from: the Mondriaan Fund (2019, 2023-2026); AFK (2020, 2021, 2022, 2025 and 2026); het Cultuurfonds (2021-22, 2024 and 2025), Stichting Symbio (2025), the Netherland-America Foundation (2025). This year, its programme will be supported by the AFK, het Cultuurfonds, Pictoright Fonds, Stroom Den Haag and the Mondriaan Fund. 


Manifold Books is a foundation with an independent board consisting of:
Arnisa Zeqo (chair)
Stephanie Noach (secretary)
Paul Domela (treasurer)