hemel press is a collaborative project between Hannah Hemel and Heide Hinrichs. hemel press is dedicated to projects, that connect the field of Fine Arts to other fields. Due to Hannah's background the first field they entered has been literature. In spring 2008 hemel press published Hunter Mnemonics. A chapbook by Deborah Woodard with drawings by Heide Hinrichs.

Before that Hannah and Heide encountered Elizabeth Haines in Belgium. Together they created the leaflet New Suns for an exhibition that carried the very same title at Galerie Tatjana Pieters in Ghent.

In fall 2009 hemel press released it's second publication in collaboration with Tatjana Pieters: the edition Rikki's .

At the beginning of 2012 Hannah and Heide have been working together with Melanie Noel on the connections between marsupials and loud speakers .

After the exhibition Echoes hemel press published in fall 2012 a booklet with drawings which Heide Hinrichs made in response to the text Dictee by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha.

At the end of 2012 Hannah and Heide are very happy to announce that they have been asked to contribute two book covers for the poetry press Stockport Flats. The first cover is for a new full length collection of poems by Deborah Woodard with the title Borrowed Tales.

The second one is for the longly awaited book The Monarchs by Melanie Noel.

In fall 2017 on the occasion of the exhibition red offering in the project space of the White House Gallery in Lovenjoel, Hannah and Heide made in collaboration with their favorite copy shop Dyna Print and the wonderful book binder Clara Gevaert hemel press' 4th edition - Übergang. Uncountable hours of rubbing the floor between the two sections of the studio were matched with cautious photocopying and extremely careful sorting, cutting and binding.

Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's book DICTEE was probably already laying somewhere on Hannah's desk whilst hemel press realized its first project in 2008, but it took until spring 2018 that Heide compleated its translation into German. The edition Silent Sisters / Stille Schwestern brings the original copy of DICTEE, published in 1982 by Tanam Press, New York, together with Heide's unauthorized German translation. Studio Storz in Berlin helped to finalize the file. Cultura in Wetteren printed the white copy and Clara Gevaert assembled the family members of hp's 5th publication. The sisters actually meet in the space that has been described in the previous edition Übergang.

I couldn’t escape your words, turned page after page until closing the book. Like a rock DICTEE laid there. I could not find an entrance into the thicket of your words until the airplane became my reading room, an echo chamber for your words I couldn’t escape. Since the echo began it has not fallen silent. I continue to walk the corners of your dictate, to visit its expanses, to try to reach its horizons and announced times. I follow the nine paths you are offering: leading from the dark, deserted place of trauma and exile to the lit place of a welcoming home, giving voice to the neglected, layered, colonized and gendered experience. One of the hundred thousand readings of your avenues into memory is manifest here as tribute, to be reread, retold and reheard again in order to not repeat history in oblivion.

Silent Sisters, Stille Schwestern is an edition that brings the unauthorized German translation of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's book DICTEE (Tanam Press, 1982), side by side with the 1982 and 1995 printings of DICTEE. Cha was an artist born 1951 in Busan during the Korean War. Her family left Korea for Hawaii in 1963 and settled a year later in San Francisco. Shortly after DICTEE was published in November of 1982 Theresa Hak Kyung Cha was raped and murdered in New York. Since 1992 the Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Archive has been held by the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive.

Ich war gefangen in deinen Worten, blätterte Seite für Seite um, bis ich das Buch wieder schloss. Wie ein Stein hatte DICTEE dagelegen. Der Zugang in das Dickicht deiner Worte war mir verborgen geblieben, bis das Flugzeug zu ihrem Echo- und meinem Leseraum wurde, dem ich nicht mehr entkommen konnte. Seitdem ist das einmal hervorgerufene Echo nicht verstummt. Ich leiste weiter deinem Diktat Folge, schreite die Ecken deines Textes ab, berühre seine Weiten und versuche Horizonte und verkündete Zeiten zu erreichen. Ich folge den neun Wegen, die du aufzeigst, von dem dunklen, verlassenen Ort des Traumas und Exils in ein helles, einladendes Zuhause führend; Ausdruck der verdrängten, überlagerten, kolonialen und weiblichen Erfahrung. Eine der hundert, tausend Deutungen deiner Straßen ins Gedächtnis zeigt sich hier als Tribut, um erneut gelesen, gehört und wiedererzählt zu werden, sodass Geschichte sich nicht in Vergessenheit wiederholen kann.

Silent Sisters, Stille Schwestern ist eine Edition, die die nicht autorisierte Übertragung von Theresa Hak Kyung Chas Buch DICTEE (Tanam Press, 1982) ins Deutsche mit den Ausgaben von DICTEE aus den Jahren 1982 und 1995 zusammenbringt. Cha war eine bildende Künstlerin, die 1951 während des Koreakrieges in Busan geboren wurde. 1963 zog ihre Familie vorübergehend nach Hawaii und siedelte sich ein Jahr später in San Francisco an. Kurz nach der Veröffentlichung von DICTEE im November 1982 wurde Theresa Hak Kyung Cha in New York vergewaltigt und ermordet. Seit 1992 befindet sich das Theresa Hak Kyung Cha Archiv in der Obhut des Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive.

For more information and inquiries please get in contact with Hannah or Heide at
h (at) 4h-club.org.