Catalogue of feeling

British contemporary artist Ed Atkins is known for his computer-generated videos and animations that examine the space between digital technology and human emotions. Atkins’ current exhibition at Tate Britain features multiple galleries of work that draw on his experiences and emotions, ranging from detailed, sometimes disturbing self-portraits, created with a brilliant red coloured pencil, to short films such as Hisser, an unsettling three-screen projection from 2015 that stars a male avatar who is swallowed up by a sinkhole. This is based on a true story that became an obsession of Atkins’.

For the Tate catalogue he collaborated with HIT, the Berlin graphic design practice of Lina Grumm and Annette Lux, who graduated from Leipzig’s Hochschule für Grafik & Buchkunst (the Academy of Fine Arts) in 2005, then went to London and founded the studio there in 2008. Now based in Berlin, the designers first worked with Atkins in 2019 when they designed an artist’s book for his show at Kunsthaus Bregenz (Austria) that year. In late 2023, Atkins connected HIT with the Tate team, including curator Polly Staple, co-curator Nathan Ladd and Tate publishing commissioning editor Emilia Will.

HIT’s Grumm and Lux then met with Atkins and the curatorial team to decide on print parameters and the selection of works to feature. They chose the landscape format for its ability to represent film stills and installation views. The pages of the casebound book are uncoated Arena Bulk Natural, which, they say, ‘makes the book surprisingly lightweight’. The serif typeface selection came from Atkins, who favours the font Fournier.

The special-edition publication consists of a dark blue fabric hardcover catalogue featuring hot foil stamping in a faux book storage box, along with a special-edition print of the artist’s pencil self-portrait Untitled (2023).

‘Ed Atkins’ continues at Tate Britain until 25 August 2025.