The main idea behind Steidl–Werk No. 23 was to create a paper object never seen before. A joint project between Theseus Chan’s Werk magazine and Steidl, it stems from Chan’s and Steidl’s mutual interest in art and books, the smell of ink, the texture of paper and the desire to subvert technology by creating work with a human imprint. Accordingly, this issue features a young Japanese artist, Masaho Anotani (born 1991), whose collage-like drawings are made almost entirely by hand. The design was inspired by a tightly taped, neatly formed package sent to the magazine by Anotani containing his printouts—an idea that found its way into the book itself, which comes as an entirely sealed entity. Building on the concept of creating and destructing the final product, a chaotic bricolage of "printed junk" is born.
