An assemblage is both an act and a result-the work of gathering and conjoining as well as the state of having been gathered and conjoined. This issue of Manual pieces together works made out of practical necessity and others that marry dazzling embellishments for optimal effect, examining how history (or one version of it) was (and is) pastiched from disparate sources, how fashionable textile samples were collected, and more (always more). An assembly of assemblages, an assortment of intended and unintended interrelationships, Manual issue six is the sum of its parts and the parts themselves, a dynamic gathering of artists and authors, objects and interpretations, mash-ups and remixes, lemons and lightbulbs, vibrantly inter-animating each other.

Issue 6: Assemblage is supported in part by a grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, through an appropriation by the Rhode Island General Assembly and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It is also made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in support of Assemblages, a collaboration between the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University and the RISD Museum at the Rhode Island School of Design focusing on the new and evolving field of object-based teaching and research. Additional generous support is provided by the RISD Museum Associates and Sotheby’s.