everything is so very much connected is a book collating collages and writing from a collaborative mail art collage project by Roelof Bakker and artist/researcher Sarah Bodman.

Together we created a place to occupy in our minds to explore creating art – a space to think about nature, the environment and climate collapse through physical making.

The project was inspired by a statement by American writer and activist James Baldwin – ‘The place in which I’ll fit will not exist until I make it.’ We took prompts from artist Paul Thek’s ‘Teaching Notes’, a questionnaire Thek compiled for his New York design class in the late 1970s, while also posing questions
to one another to inspire our collage-making. Scissors, glue, pencil, paint and rubber stamps were our tools; vintage postcards, original photographs, old books, newspapers and magazines our raw material.

I’m with the trees, we sing together.

Made with hands is handmade activism.

If not human I would be a mountain.

Love nature for more than its appearance.

To widen the collaborative spirit of the project, we invited artists/writers Rachel Smith and Declan Wiffen to respond to our collages with new writing.

Publication date 24 October 2025.
Available to pre-order from
https://www.neg-press.com/product/everything-is-so-very-much-connected

Keywords: climate collapse, environment, queering nature, artist’s books

---

roelof bakker experiments with photographic processes, writes and makes artist’s books published through his imprint Negative Press London with titles in international collections. Recent books include Plastic Particles in my Testicles (2025) and Some Queer Animals (2023, shortlist Arles Prix Du Livre 2024).

sarah bodman is an artist and researcher at CFPR, University of the West of England, Bristol; editor of the Artist’s Book Yearbook, Book Arts Newsletter and The Blue Notebook journal for artists’ books. Recent projects include Read With Me, created in tribute to Susan Hiller’s Sisters of Menon (Coracle Press, Gimpel Fils, 1983). https://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk @sarah.bodman

rachel smith works across art and writing, producing visual poetry and artist’s books. She co-edits ‘Intergraphia’ with Emma Bolland. Recent books include stopping. Or – part of AMBruno ‘Intervals’ project;  Small gestures of endurance, Penteract Press; Breath:e St(utter)ance, Timglaser. @rachel_artsmith

declan wiffen (he/him) teaches Contemporary Literature and Creative Writing at The University of Kent, also running writing courses which think through questions about queer ecologies. His pamphlet, indiscriminate lanking, published Invisible Hand Press, 2022. @lichencamp

---

Publication date 24 October 2025
56pp, wire-o-bound
Printed on 170gsm natural recycled paper made with 100% recycled pulp (FSC Certified Recycling) by Sustainable Print Ltd, Kent, UK
ISBN 978-0-9573828-9-3
Edition of 50