S H I B B O L E T H

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As a research-based publishing project, Shibboleth focuses on how we create meaning, how we do so at different stages of our lives and under different conditions.

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Shibboleth was founded by Alice Peach, Libri Finti Clandestini, Clive Britton, James M. Bradburne, Ilaria Bollati and Allegra Baggio Corradi. Current collaborators include Edoardo Ferrari, Chiara Cortellini, Petra Filagrana, Francesca Della Santa, Elisa Mapelli and Sveva Conte.

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Shibboleth takes its name from the Hebrew term for 'code of access. In the Hebrew Bible, the pronunciation of the word 'Shibboleth' was used to distinguish Ephraimites (whose dialect lacked a /sh/ sound as in 'shoe'), from Gileadites (whose dialect did). This is denial with enforcement. On the opposite side of the spectrum, shibbolets are single sign-on linchpins that allow access to privacy-preserving online environments (usually of universities or federal organisations). This is acceptance without enforcement. The semantic capacity of a single word to cover two opposing polarities points to the double truths that language speaks: inclusion and exclusion; understanding and misunderstanding; dialogue and silence; acceptance and rejection; instinct and insight.

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Language emerges from a close observation of the world.
It is an exercise in translation. Something always goes missing.

Language operates through conventionalised signs and symbols.
It is a creative commons. It is no truth.

Language overlaps with the world.
It is a layer. It clarifies as much as it clouds.

Language is a memory of reality.
It is an approximation. It is always tentative.

Language is the sum total of its uses.
It is liquid. It is shapeless.

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How do we know what we think until we see what we say?

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As a social cooperative, Shibboleth engages in long-term projects with children born in prison, neuropsychiatry patients, autistic people, people with Down syndrome, deaf people, polyglots, migrants, etc. The weekly exercises and activities we carry out with these communities result in publications that retrace the potentially infinite paths that can lead from intention to articulation, that is, from the act of thinking a thought to its verbal and non-verbal expression through image-words in a specific cultural, social and political context. Recalcitrant to fixity, language is folded into bound space-time sequences commonly known as 'books'.

☞ On Language

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☞ Tomatoes and their sauces