PAST EVENTS AND COLLABORATIONS

April 16-18, 2021: Collective members Irene Chan and Radha Pandey are representing the collective at Bristol Art Book Fair (BABE 2021).

We’re delighted to bring the Bristol Artists Book Event back to Arnolfini. Due to ongoing Covid restrictions, it won’t be quite the same sort of big, crowded book fair that we’re used to but we are still able to bring you work by over 100 book artists from around the world, online.

Artist book-films for BABE

Bristol Artist’s Book Event at Arnolfini will present works by over 100 book artists and small publishers from around the world, online over the weekend.

Ranging from recorded talks from Australia to Mexico about international collections and exhibitions, through documentation of printing processes, to book-based performances and experimental short films, this is an amazing set of creative responses to what ‘digitising a book’, or ‘online reading’ might mean.

We have had submissions from artists and publishers in Australia, Argentina, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, UK and Ireland and the USA.

The films are available to view here from the 16 April 2021.

Joining in online

In addition, we have a writing workshop by Egidija Čiricaitė, a printing demonstration by the Lemonade Press, and a paper cutting workshop for families by Linda Toigo. Plus there will be book-based creative prompts and invitations to respond to by Julie Johnstone and Maria White, Sarah Bodman, Tom Sowden, Angie Butler, and Emily Artinian – check them out, and share your responses online.

BABE is organised by Sarah Bodman, Angie Butler, Phil Owen and Tom Sowden (Centre for Fine Print Research, School of Art & Design UWE Bristol and Arnolfini).

April 17-18, 2021: Bristol Artists Book Event (BABE)

With the more recent restrictions due to Covid, we will be hosting a ‘lost weekend’ version of BABE over the weekend of 17 – 18 April 2021 as an interim BABE in the run up to our usual larger event which we now plan to hold at Arnolfini in 2022.

For 2021 Arnolfini will stream talks/readings/performances in the auditorium, showcase some real books in the reading room, host public workshops and perhaps live performances, there may even be a themed cocktail on sale in the bar. Our aim is for the public to be able to visit over the weekend.

EVENTS

Feb 24-28, 2021: Printed Matter Virtual Art Book Fair

Lukaza: Their Slow Looking: These Views Are Our Tools is now available at childishbooks.pmvabf.org

Lukaza: Slow Looking: A Virtual Viewfinding Event, Saturday 2/27 4:00pm EST register for your FREE ticket.

Alisa and Tia: are among the many contributors to Amaranth Borsuk's new book, THE BOOK: 101 DEFINITIONS, available at anteismxthehole.pmvabf.org.

Tia: has a table at primrosepress.pmvabf.org

Mar: Friday at 5 pm EST on the Critical Convening on Approaches to Criticism for Activist Material as Artist’s Books and Publishing as Practice panel at the 2021 Contemporary Artists' Book Conference (CABC)

Tiffany, Colette G., and Kinohi: Saturday at 5pm EST on the Critical Convening on Terminology and Contextualizing Historic Material panel at CABC.

PAST EVENTS w/ RECORDINGS

Jan 22, 2021: Book/Print Artists/Scholars of Color Collective: Closing Roundtable.

Recording: https://youtu.be/-dTuZyEtQ2s

Book artist Tia Blassingame founded The Book/Print Artists/Scholars of Color Collective to build community and collaborations with BIPOC book/print practitioners and scholars. The Collective represents a growing community of more than twenty book artists, scholars, librarians, papermakers, letterpress printers, printmakers, and curators. All are passionate about book history, print culture, and the endless potential of artists' books as vehicles of social change and cultural conveyors that uplift our communities, and tell our stories, histories.

This is the third in a series of three events generously funded by David Solo featuring presentations and discussions by Collective members. In this session, all eight members of the collective will gather for a roundtable discussion of and reflection on the previous panels.

You can watch the recordings of the previous sessions on the BSA YouTube Channel:

• October 23, 2020: Tia Blassingame, Ashley Hairston Doughty, Kinohi Nishikawa, & Curtis Small

• November 20, 2020: Irene Chan, Devin Fitzgerald, Colette Fu, Radha Pandey

Image Credit: Procreation: Push+Pull. Photo courtesy of Ashley Hairston Doughty.

Participants
Tia Blassingame is a book artist and printmaker exploring the intersection of race, history, and perception, Blassingame often incorporates archival research and her own poetry in her artist’s book projects for nuanced discussions of racism in the United States. Her artist's books are held in library and museum collections including Library of Congress, Stanford University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, and State Library of Queensland. Blassingame is an Assistant Professor of Art at Scripps College and serves as the Director of Scripps College Press.

Ashley Hairston Doughty is a visual storyteller, explaining personal experiences through verbal and visual language. Much of her practice deals with socio-economic, racial, and gender-based issues, particularly those relating to cultural misconceptions and the development of personal identity. Although trained as a graphic designer, Doughty’s artwork often crosses multiple media, including typography, illustration, writing, fiber and materials, and book arts. She shares and encourages such art-making as an Assistant Professor of Art at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and through her design studio, Design Kettle. Doughty’s work is included in the Joan Flasch Artists’ Book Collection in Chicago and has received awards from the Caxton Club, the College Book Arts Association, and Arion Press.

Irene Chan is a multidisciplinary artist who works conceptually in print media, papermaking, installation, storytelling performance, and book arts. She is an Associate Professor of Visual Arts (Founder and Head of Print Media) and Affiliate Faculty of Asian Studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, U.S.A. Her books and works on paper have been exhibited internationally and held in 80 public collections including the Walker Art Center, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Tate Modern, Victoria & Albert Museum, and British Library in London. Chan established Ch’An (ch’ ahn) Press through which she has self-published prints and 35 artist books to date. She is the recipient of grants and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Arts Council, Maryland State Arts Council, Washington D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities, of fellowships to 23 artist residencies, and has exhibited and performed in 55 venues in the last ten years.

Devin Fitzgerald is the Curator of Rare Books and the History of Printing at UCLA Library Special Collections. A specialist in Western and East Asian book history and a bibliographer, Devin researches the global circulation of East Asian books. Devin was a 2015 Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Critical Bibliography and received additional training at both the University of Virginia and California Rare Book Schools. He obtained his PhD in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University.

Colette Fu received her MFA in Fine Art Photography from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2003, and soon after began devising complex compositions that incorporate photography and pop-up paper engineering. She has designed for award-winning stop motion animation commercials and free-lanced for clients including Greenpeace, Vogue China, Canon Asia, and the Delaware Disaster Research Center. Fu’s numerous awards include the 2018 Meggendorfer Prize for best paper engineered artist book, a 2008 Fulbright Research Fellowship to China, and grants from the Independence Foundation, Leeway Foundation, En Foco, and the Puffin Foundation. Her photo-based pop-up books are included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Library of Congress, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and many private and rare archive collections. She has attended many fully-funded artist residencies including those at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Yaddo, Macdowell Colony, Sacatar, Vermont Studio Center, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and the Alden B. Dow Center for Creativity. Her solo show “Wanderer/Wonderer: The Pop-ups of Colette Fu” was presented at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in 2016/17. In 2017, Fu created the world’s largest pop-up book at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center measuring 14×21 feet. Visitors were invited to enter the book. A passionate educator, Fu also teaches artmaking as a way to give voice to communities through pop-up paper engineered projects. She teaches pop-up courses and community workshops to marginalized populations at art centers, universities and institutions internationally.

Kinohi Nishikawa is Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at Princeton University. His book Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2018. He is currently at work on Black Paratext, a study of how book design has shaped modern African American literature.

Radha Pandey is a papermaker and letterpress printer. She earned her MFA in Book Arts from the University of Iowa Center for the Book where she was a recipient of the Iowa Arts Fellowship. She practices European, Eastern and Indo-Islamic Papermaking techniques and teaches book arts classes in India, Europe and the US. Her bookAnatomia Botanicawon the MICA Book Award in 2014, and received an Honorable Mention at the 15th Carl Hertzog Award for Excellence in Book Design. In 2018, her bookDeep Timewon the Joshua Heller Memorial Award. Her artist books are held in over 40 public collections internationally, including the Library of Congress and Yale University. Currently, Radha is working on an artist book inspired by Mughal floral portraiture from the 17th century, for which all the paper will be hand made in the traditional Indo-Islamic style.York Arts Council, Maryland State Arts Council, Washington D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities, of fellowships to 23 artist residencies, and has exhibited and performed in 55 venues in the last ten years.

Curtis Small is a Librarian and Coordinator of Public Services for the Special Collections department at the University of Delaware Library, Museums and Press. In this position, he coordinates the reference, instruction and exhibition programs, and also serves as a curator for the rare book collections. In 2017, Curtis curated the exhibition Issues and Debates in African American Literature at UD Library. In 2019, he was a co-organizer of the Black Bibliographia conference, also at the University of Delaware. As a proud team member of the Colored Conventions Project, Curtis works on permissions and outreach. He has also done scholarly research on the print history of the Colored Conventions Movement and the importance of Haiti within the movement. Curtis also works to increase racial diversity among professionals in the fields of archives and Special Collections. He holds a PhD in French from New York University and an MLIS degree from the School of Library and Information Science at Simmons University.