OP DE TAST
‘Touch subscription’ OP DE TAST was a mail art project by Marijn Bax and Richtje Reinsma, created in corona time in reaction to the one and a half metre measure. For the past nine months (Jan 2021 to Sept 2021), Marijn and Richtje have been making an art work in edition together every month, with image and text on haptically selected paper (A3 format) in which they explored experiences of the loss of the everyday touch.
Skin hunger; mental preparations for possible returns or final farewells to various greeting rituals; an ode to a body part which, thanks to SARS-CoV-2, was given a new role in social distanced interactions — different topics have been addressed. Sometimes Richtje and Marijn made use of source materials (e.g. photo archives, (song) texts, the public debate as reflected in the media, a self-made OP DE TAST survey on the changed experiences of touch). The lifting of the one and a half metre measure on25 September ushered in the end of the ‘touch’-subscription.
OP DE TAST has unfolded as an artistic investigation into the present state of touch. Sometimes looking back, then sensing forward; but mostly focused on the diffuse complexity of the present as it incessantly keeps slipping away through our fingers.
