A ball has been kicked by a man.

A man carrying a flag.

A flag that has been previously kicked by another person.

Another person of whom we only know the gesture of his leg at the moment of shooting.

The drawing ends with an “etc.” Two annotations appear: "this was a project but" at the top of the drawing and “we have forgotten what it was” at the bottom. Around 2012, we found this drawing inside the book Games at the Cedilla, or the Cedilla Takes Off by Robert Filliou and George Brecht, published by Something Else Press in 1967.

This image has haunted us all this time. The drawing seems to be the beginning of a game. The elements of the drawing indicate the instructions for playing. It is like a word game, where each element conditions the next, and so on. At the same time, the information suggests the game is fun.

Don’t think too much. The more absurd, the better. Continue playing and have fun. The “etc.” indicates that we could continue playing endlessly: a ball kicked by a man who is carrying a flag who has been kicked by a woman who has a hat which has been hit by a man who is wearing a wig who has been kicked by a woman who has an umbrella which has been kicked by a man...

This drawing is perhaps the best way to describe what a book means to us. We use books to research, share a workspace, exchange ideas, and build a community.

We met in London in 2012 and began sharing an interest in printed forms. Between 2012 and 2022, we work under the name of RUJA and published more than 70 publications. Now, it is about “this was a project, but we have forgotten what it was.” We are not publishers, but two artists who make books together, sometimes with our very dear friends.

Ruohong Wu is an architect trained at The Architectural Association, London. Working across art, architecture, design, and research, her work involves replicating, parasitizing, and mutating unified systems. Ruohong is currently completing her Ph.D. research on “Sturtevant, The House of Horrors.”

José Quintanar is an artist using books and drawings as the primary format for his work.  José explores the possibilities of drawing as a game and how it serves as a primary method for establishing processes based on rudimentary rules. José has just completed his doctoral research, “Books as Public Space.” José Ja Ja Ja was his name as a comic drawer in the past.