Knockdown Center hosts the final day of the Refiguring the Future Conference, organized by Eyebeam and REFRESH, and presented in collaboration with Hunter College Art Galleries.

 

About the Refiguring the Future Conference
Following a public reception on February 8, Refiguring the Futurewill open with a two-day conference highlighting over 20 speakers and workshop leaders, including special keynotes by Simone Browne, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, and Paul B. Preciado in conversation with Zach Blas. Providing space to unpack the key themes in the exhibition through keynotes, panel discussions, and community engaged programs, the conference will grapple with marginalizing states of technology by propelling us to a future in becoming.

With conditions of ecologies, humanities, and sciences being implicated by technological biases, what possibilities arise when this accelerated force is paused and worldbuilding is privileged anew? As technical powers have perpetuated systemic cultural and economic oppression, the ways in which we exist, navigate, and project are seemingly dictated and undermined.

The Refiguring the Future conference convenes artists, educators, writers, and cultural strategists to envision a shared liberatory future by providing us with collective imaginings that move beyond and critique oppressive systems to offer alternative possibilities. Additional participants include: Taeyoon Choi, Sofía Córdova, Kadija Ferryman, Shannon Finnegan, Anneli Goeller, Kathy High, Yo-Yo Lin, Maandeeq Mohamed, Rasheedah Phillips, Sofía Unanue, and Alexander Weheliye (list in formation).

The Refiguring the Future conference is curated by Eyebeam/REFRESH Curatorial and Engagement Fellow Lola Martinez and REFRESH member Maandeeq Mohamed.

FEBRUARY 10  CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

11:15 AM – 12:00 PM | Event Check in 

12:00 PM – 01:45 PM | Session 1: Workshops, Talks, and Screenings

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Workshop | Mxtressclass: Lexi Had a Little Alembic

Location: Ready Room Bar

In a co-constitutive process of exchange, this semi-structure workshop will engage participants on collaborative writing for performance, online synchronous writing, and collaborative writing processes using enabling constraints and sympoietic systems.

In Her Interior (Virginia Barratt and Francesca da Rimini), Artists

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body

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Talks | Refiguring Planetary Health, Building Black Futures

Location: Annex

We cannot have a healthy planet that sustains all human beings as long as the systemic oppression of Black and Indigenous peoples continues. And yet, prominent environmental science institutions concerned with conservation and climate change often fail to address this oppression or their role in perpetuating it. In this talk, we will explore how histories of scientific racism and eugenics inform current scientific policies and practice. Cynthia Malone will work with various forms of freedom practice, from hip hop to science fiction to scholarship in the Black Radical Tradition, to consider alternative visions for planetary health that advance both environmental stewardship and liberation from oppressive ideologies and systems.

Cynthia Malone, Activist, Scholar, and Scientist

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The Spirit of the Water Bear

In this talk, Claire Pentecost will give an introduction and reading of Spirit of the Water Bear, a young adult novel set in a coastal town in the Carolinas. The novel’s protagonist, Juni Poole, is a 15-year-old girl who spends much of her time exploring the natural world. Inevitably, she finds herself confronting the urgency of a crisis that has no end, namely climate change and the sixth great extinction. Through experiences of activism, she finds comrades who feel environmental and political urgency much as she does, and learns that she has a place in the ongoing struggle for environmental justice. The book is a work of “Cli-Fi” or climate fiction, featuring Juni’s adventures, but it is also a work of “Cli-Phi” or climate philosophy, featuring conversations and musings on the nature of our existential predicament.

Claire Pentecost, Artist

Speaker Introductions by Lola Martinez, Eyebeam and REFRESH Curatorial and Engagement Fellow

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Workshop | Bioplastics for Ritual Healing from Petrochemical Landscapes 

Location: Arizona

In this bioplastics and biomaterials workshop, participants will refigure methodologies to radically re-make petro-chemically derived plastic materials that we use in our everyday lives. We will envision tactics for reclaiming, rebuilding, nurturing and healing – via renewable biological raw materials – the extractive and destructive processes of techno-capitalism and the inherent waste, cultural and environmental degradation of these now dominant processes.

Tiare Ribeaux, Artist—

Screening | Incense, Sweaters, and Ice

Location: Gallery 2

(1 hour, 9 minutes. Closed Captioned)

Incense Sweaters & Ice follows the movements of Girl, Mrs. Queen Esther Bernetta White, and WB (“whiteboy”) through different phases of watching, being watched, and remaining unseen. Using Hollywood film tropes and the visual languages of social media video platforms like Vine and Instagram, the film follows the long cinematic history of using camera motion to create the illusion of subjectivity. Intertwining technique and narrative, the film drives at the tension between surveillance and self­ promotion that pervades our many avenues of self­ documentation and broadcast.

Martine Syms, Artist

Film Introductions by Maandeeq Mohamed, Writer

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01:45 PM – 02:45 PM | Lunch 

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03:00 PM – 04:45 PM |   Session 2: Workshops, Talks, and Programs

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Workshop | Abstract Data Portraits

Location: Wood Jamb

Note: Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops.

In this community data justice workshop, participants will explore the data they constantly create by generating and abstracting their data via creative code. Through an informative yet playful process, we aim to demystify concepts around “big data” by allowing agency and providing information.

Ladan Siad, Designer and Creative Technologist

Aljumaine Gayle, Designer

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Roundtables and Talks | Visible networks: Community Building in the Digital Arena

Location: Annex

As notions of accessibility are being rendered visible on networks and digital medias, disability and chronic illness communities are utilizing networks to provide resources and representations. Yet what does it mean to build community within these platforms? This roundtable discussion offers reflections by artists working to provide new insights into biomedical discourses which reinforce apparent and unapparent representations of disabled bodies.

Hayley Cranberry, Artist

Anneli Goeller, Artist

Yo-Yo Lin, Artist

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#GLITCHFEMINISM

Legacy Russell is the founding theorist behind Glitch Feminism as a cultural manifesto and movement. #GLITCHFEMINISM aims to use the digital as a means of resisting the hegemony of the corporeal. Glitch Feminism embraces the causality of ‘error’ and turns the gloomy implication of ‘glitch’ on its ear by acknowledging that an error in a social system disturbed by economic, racial, social, sexual, cultural stratification, and the imperialist wrecking-ball of globalization—processes that continue to enact violence on all bodies—may not be ‘error’ at all, but rather a much-needed erratum. The digital is a vessel through which our glitch ‘becoming’ realises itself, and through which we can reprogramme binary gender coding. Our ‘glitch’ is a correction to the machine—f**k hegemonic coding! USURP THE BODY—BECOME YOUR AVATAR!

Legacy Russell, Curator and Writer

Speaker Introductions by Lola Martinez, Eyebeam and REFRESH Curatorial and Engagement Fellow

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Workshop |  Alt-text as Poetry 

Location: Ready Room Bar

Alt-text is a key building block of web accessibility, allowing blind people and people with low vision to access visual content. Often it is seen through the lens of compliance, as an unwelcome burden that needs to be met with minimum effort. How can we instead approach alt-text lavishly and creatively? In this workshop, we will reframe alt-text as a type of poetry and practice writing it together.

Shannon Finnegan, Artist

Bojana Coklyat, Artist

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Workshop |  Distributed Web of Care

Location: Arizona

What kind of network do we want for the future? How does it feel to be programmed into centralized, decentralized, and distributed networks? Distributed Web of Care imagines a more equitable, caring internet for the future. Through lecture and performance, we will address timely issues of the internet including surveillance, censorship, corporate data ownership, and explore alternative methods of communicating via peer to peer protocols for collective agency.

Taeyoon Choi, Artist and co-founder of School for Poetic Computation

Stud1nt, Sound Artist

Cori Kresge, Dancer

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04:45 PM – 05:00 PM | Session Break 

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05:00 PM – 05:30 PM | Performance: Breaching Toward Other Futures

Location: Main

For their performance, Morehshin Allahyari and Shirin Fahimi will channel the revelation of the jinn figures Aisha Qandisha and Ilm al-raml as their method for telling and opening doors towards other futures. Aisha Qandisha is one of the most honored and fearsome jinn in Islam, known as “the opener”. When she possesses humans, she does not take over the host but rather opens them to an outside–to a storm of incoming jinn and demons, making them a traffic zone of cosmodromic data. Ilm al-raml refers to the foresight that the Earth holds within itself. Through its practice, this foresight is revealed and the future is seen, known, and breached.

Morehshin Allahyari, Artist

Shirin Fahimi, Artist

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The Knockdown Center is an accessible venue. The conference entrance is located on 52-19 Flushing Ave at 54th St through a parking lot. The accessible entrance is available by ramp in front of the building. Restrooms are located on the ground floor lobby area and are wheelchair accessible.

(For accessible transportation inquiries from the Flushing Ave JM MTA Station to the Knockdown Center please contact j.soto@eyebeam.org or +1 347 378 9163 (voice only) by Thursday, February 7)

Day 1: American Sign Language interpretation and CART captioning will be provided

Day 2: American Sign Language interpretation will be provided

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About the Refiguring the Future Exhibition 
Curated by REFRESH collective members Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Dorothy R. Santos, the exhibition title is inspired by artist Morehshin Allahyari’s work defining a concept of “refiguring” as a feminist, de-colonial, and activist practice. Informed by the punk ethos of do-it-yourself (DIY), the 18 artists featured in Refiguring the Future deeply mine the historical and cultural roots of our time, pull apart the artifice of contemporary technology, and sift through the pieces to forge new visions of what could become.

The exhibition will present 11 new works alongside re-presented immersive works by feminist, queer, decolonial, anti-racist, and anti-ableist artists concerned with our technological and political moment including: Morehshin Allahyari, Lee Blalock, Zach Blas*, micha cárdenas* and Abraham Avnisan, In Her Interior (Virginia Barratt and Francesca da Rimini)*, Mary Maggic, Lauren McCarthy, shawné michaelain holloway*, Claire and Martha Pentecost, Sonya Rapoport, Barak adé Soleil,Sputniko! and Tomomi Nishizawa, Stephanie Syjuco, and Pinar Yoldas*.

Names with asterik denotes participation in conference.

Refiguring the Future Schedule
Exhibition: February 8, 2019—March 31, 2019
205 Hudson Gallery, Hunter College Art Galleries
New York, NY 10013

Conference: February 9-10, 2019
February 9th, 2018
10am – 6pm
Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College
695 Park Ave, New York, NY 10065

February 10th, 2018
12pm – 6pm
Knockdown Center
52-19 Flushing Ave, Maspeth, NY 11378

*Full detailed schedule coming soon

ABOUT
Technology’s effect on our future is always changing and difficult to understand. Through exploratory process and emotionally compelling output, Eyebeam believes that artists can help us visualize and realize a more just future. Eyebeam provides both space and support for a community of diverse, justice-driven artists. Our annual residency program, highly engaged community of alumni, advanced tools and resources, and shows and events help our artists bring their work to life and out into the world. Eyebeam enables people to think creatively and critically about technology’s effect on society, with the mission of revealing new paths toward a more just future for all.

REFRESH is a collaborative and politically engaged platform established in 2016. As a collective, they begin with inclusion as a starting point for pursuing sustainable artistic and curatorial practices across the fields of art, science, and technology.

Hunter College Art Galleries provide a space for critical engagement with art and pedagogy, bringing together historical scholarship, contemporary artistic practice, and experimental methodology.

Kaye Playhouse hosts internationally-acclaimed artists and music, dance and theatre companies for New York audiences, as well as serving as the centerpiece for the performing arts at Hunter College.

Join Werk It: A Women’s Podcast Festival, the inimitable annual gathering for women shaping the future of podcasting! Two full days of conversations, workshops, live tapings, networking events, and one-on-one mentoring sessions, plus our Podcast Accelerator: your chance to pitch a show, incubate a pilot, and score a development deal with WNYC Studios.

Register now to become a part of our growing community of female and non-binary producers, hosts, writers, reporters, editors, engineers, social media managers, marketers, sound designers, video producers, entrepreneurs, and executives, from across the United States and around the world, in all stages of our careers.

We’ll be updating the schedule and list of presenters, posting information and ticketing for evening Werk It events happening at venues across NYC, and sharing FAQs about the festival at www.werkitfestival.com.

Werk It is produced by WNYC Studios, the home of Radiolab, Death, Sex & Money, 2 Dope Queens, Note to Self, Snap Judgment, Sooo Many White Guys, Here’s the Thing, The New Yorker Radio Hour, On the Media, Nancy and other great podcasts.

Called the “SXSW of blockchain”, Ethereal brings together futurists, entrepreneurs, investors, artists, musicians, and humanitarians for two days of storytelling and knowledge sharing around the future we want to build using the power of transformative technologies.

VISION AND TECHNOLOGY: toward a more just future is a conference organized by the International Center of Photography (ICP) and Eyebeam that addresses the implications of visuality, representation, and privacy in the age of surveillance and big data. This public symposium convenes artists, technologists, and scholars to explore the following questions:

How do artists and creative technologists respond to, or intervene in, new technologies to create more equitable ways of seeing and sharing information?
How does technology facilitate both democratized representation and privacy?
How can we build toward just futures for our human and post-human selves?

Agenda
9:30–10 AM
Breakfast and Introductory Remarks

10–10:30 AM
Machine Bias and Algorithmic Justice
A dialogue between Surya Mattu and Mimi Onuoha

10:30–11:30 AM
How to Hide
An exploration of privacy and obfuscation tactics with Harlo Holmes,Harris Kornstein and Sarah Aoun

11:45 AM–12:45 PM
How to Be Seen
A conversation on representation, interfaces, and our cyborg selves with American Artist, Tonia B******, Stephanie Dinkins, and Nora Kahn

12:45–2 PM
Lunch
Food and fun provided

2–3 PM
Poetic Operations: Algorithmic Analysis for Trans of Color Poetics
A keynote address, delivered by new media artist and theorist micha cárdenas

3:15–4:15 PM
How to See
A meditation on virtual and social ways of visualizing realities and paying attention, with Morehshin Allahyari, Chloë Bass, Ramsey Nasser, and Reya Sehgal

4:30–5:30 PM
How to Build
A conversation on organizing tactics in a digital world with Caroline Woolard, Ari Melenciano, and Salome Asega

Symposium attendees are invited to attend an after party at Eyebeam (199 Cook St., Brooklyn, NY—about 15 minutes from the symposium location via the B57 bus):

Eyebeam Assembly: AFTERCARE
Presented with Topical Cream and ICP
6–9:30 PM
This post-symposium party celebrates femme-centered futures, with performances, installations, and vibes curated by Topical Cream.

About the Organizers
The International Center of Photography (ICP) is the world’s leading institution dedicated to photography and visual culture. Cornell Capa founded ICP in 1974 to preserve the legacy of “concerned photography”—the creation of socially and politically-minded images that have the potential to educate and change the world— and the center’s mission endures today, even as the photographic medium and image making practices have evolved. Through its exhibitions, school, public programs, and community outreach, ICP offers an open forum for dialogue about the role that photographs, videos, and new media play in our society. To date, it has presented more than 700 exhibitions and offered thousands of classes at every level. ICP brings together photographers, artists, students, and scholars to create and interpret the realm of the image. Here, members of this unique community are encouraged to explore photography and visual culture as mediums of empowerment and as catalysts for wide-reaching social change.

Founded in 1998, Eyebeam was the very first critical space of its kind: a place to think creatively about how technology was transforming our society. Eyebeam has given time, spacen and money to artists whose work has shaped our world—including the first-ever social sharing tool ReBlog, electronic toys startup littleBits, and the pioneering net art of Cory Arcangel. Eyebeam aims to ensure artists become central in the invention and design of our shared future. Everything is guided by a focus on Eyebeam’s core values: openness, invention, and justice.

Topical Cream is a 501(c)3 nonprofit covering women, femmes, and gender-nonconforming individuals in contemporary art. Since 2013, the New York–based platform has supported a community of artists, writers, designers, and technologists through digital publishing and public programming initiatives.

Barbercon is the premier global festival of the barbering community. Launched in 2016 by Lee Resnick as the live networking event for Barbershopconnect, the first social site exclusively for barbers, Barbercon brings together thousands of high-profile and amateur barbers, cosmetologists, and brands from around the world. The Barbercon experience is centered on bridging the gap between Cosmetology and Men’s Grooming, and comprises of three stages for live haircutting tutorials and product demonstrations, education classes, an expanded indoor/outdoor Barbercon Marketplace, the prestigious Barbercon Awards, a barber themed art gallery, and many more unique surprises and special guests. The most exciting addition is the outdoor festival area that will feature artisanal food trucks, drinks, music, games, and an exclusive VIP Lounge featuring a private bar, comfortable lounge area, activations, gift bags, and more. For more on Barbercon and Barbershopconnect check out www.barbercon.com.

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Barbercon VIP Package:

• 2-Day General Admission Ticket to Barbercon ($60 Value)
• Early Entry (prior to General Admission doors)
• Access to One (1) VIP-Only Education Class (prior to General Admission doors)
• Access to a an exclusive VIP lounge (ft. games, luxury décor, and more)
• Access to exclusive VIP only cash bar (top shelf liquor, beer & refreshments)
• One (1) VIP Gift Bag
• One (1) custom VIP laminate

Available here

 

BABZ Fair (formerly known at the Bushwick Art Book & Zine Fair) is a weekend long event that features small press art and poetry publishers and individual artist projects alongside a program of performance, readings, and workshops.

The 5th annual BABZ Fair, the first at Knockdown Center, will be taking place Friday, June 2 through Sunday, June 4, 2017. The fair is organized by Blonde Art Books, a Brooklyn based project dedicated to promoting independent publishing & self-published art books through exhibitions, book fairs, talks, and online exposure.

Over the years the BABZ Fair has grown dramatically and this year the fair will feature art books and zines by over 100 publishers and artists from across the country.

This year we are collaborating with artist Andrea Arrubla to produce the weekend programming. The full program schedule, including a new expanded program series, and workshop series, will be announced shortly.

Food and beverages will be available for purchase throughout the weekend.

Full Program Schedule:

MIAMI BEACH
Saturday, June 3

2:00PM
Wonder/Troll Thread
Shit Advice w/ Diana Hamilton and friends

3:00PM
Cammi Climaco will be reading a series of short pieces from a book in progress titled What Else Is New (eye roll) and Janelle Poe will read from her recent publications including the collaborative zine, Black & White Studies. Presented by Small Editions.

4:00PM
Brownbook, along with Fully Booked and Edge of Arabia, co-presents a special doubleheader featuring two creative duos: the artists Shahrzad Changalvaee and Iman Raad, who live and work between Tehran and New Haven, will present a talk regarding their work, “Two-Headed Imagomancy,” an ongoing, collaborative lecture performance project; Bailey Sheehan and Rahul S. Shinde, artist–designers based out of Philadelphia, will perform excerpts from their new book, Moses Hammer. This presentation is guided by the unique, transnational artistic dialogues induced by the cultural climate of the United Arab Emirates.

5:00PM
Benjamin Santiago & the Spaundou Players perform a set of songs in the constructed language Spaundou (pronounced like “SPAWN-doo”). Despite some intended goofiness, Spaundou is a real language with its own rules and “cultural” references. It isn’t nonsense but has it’s own sense. It is a way to experience of being half-Filipino & half-Puerto Rican but speaking the language of neither place. Selections include songs from troh-seht whah-zhej ee-woon-doo-zha-mah ah-yoo-ohb as well as new material! Take a pamphlet and sing along!

6:00PM
THE GALA is an in-progress play by Sean J Patrick Carney. In rural Northern Michigan, the Old Mission Artists Colony prepares for its annual fundraising gala. A few miles away, an ecological terrorist cell makes their own plans for the gala, an extreme spectacle of violence to wipe out the artists colony for good. Readers include Azikiwe Mohammed, Darcie Wilder, Eric Allan Schwartau, Lorelei Ramirez, Brian Droitcour, Erin Schwartz, James Allister Sprang, Mike Pepi, Amy Zimmer, and Michael Welsh.

Sunday, June 4

2:00PM
Slow Youth presents: A reading by Ariel Goldberg, a writer and artist who recently published The Estrangement Principle (Nightboat Books), a book of essays on labeling art queer.

3:00PM
The Puerto Rico Review is a new biannual journal of original fiction, poetry, criticism, and, more broadly, political reflection delving into or stemming from Puerto Rican literature. Envisioned as a space for the generations that are currently witnessing the failure of the constitutional project of the “Commonwealth” (Estado Libre Asociado) of Puerto Rico, the journal does, indeed, place the history and literature of Puerto Rico under review. This bilingual reading will feature editor-in-chief Cristina Pérez Díaz and contributor Rojo Robles. Presented by The Puerto Rico Review / Topos Press.

The Puerto Rico Review es una revista de narrativa, poesía y crítica original, así como de reflexión política a partir de obras literarias puertorriqueñas. La invitación va a poner bajo review la historia y literatura puertorriqueñas. Proponemos un espacio y un puente para la última generación que creció bajo las ilusiones del intento fallido de industrialización y modernidad del Estado Libre Asociado. En esta lectura bilingüe contamos con la editora fundadora, Cristina Pérez Díaz, y con el escritor Rojo Robles.

4:00PM
Sean D. Henry-Smith, Al Schmidt, Natalia Panzer, Millie Kapp, Elsa Brown, and Xatherine Gonzalez will be reading the celebrate the release of Flash 3: Queer Drive published by Glass Press. The flash drive is filled with anti-racist LGBTQ+ affirming content (poetry, video, photo, bedroom fashion shoots, gifs, comics, music, mixes, visual art) and mailed for free to Gay Straight Alliances across the country.

5:00PM
The Pilipinx American Library (PAL) presents America is in The Heart: A non-linear medley performance/tribute to Carlos Bulosan’s semi-autobiographical first novel. Completed in the 1940’s, America is in The Heart is the earliest U.S. published, English-language narrative of a Pilipinx American experience. It is written from the perspective of an immigrant itinerant laborer at a time of extreme xenophobia and violent racism during the Great Depression. Writers and artists invited to respond to the novel are Gina Apostol, Aldrin Valdez, Paolo Javier, and other special guests TBA.

 

WORKSHOPS ON THE PATIO

Saturday, June 3

1:30-3:00PM
We’re Calling It Speedback, Led by Wendy’s Subway
For this hour, we’ll do some thinking about our interests and obsessions as writers, and about how we talk to others about those identifications. Then we’ll invite participants to share some of this thinking, along with their own work, in a series of structured, one-on-one conferences. Participants should bring around two pages of work-in-progress to share (a printer will be available if you arrive without a hard copy). Our goal will be to get everyone in the group a variety of feedback, then culminate with some notes towards future revision. Register by email at info@wendyssubway.com.

3:30-5:00PM
Life Coloring Book, With Flat Fix
Bring your kids and come join Flat Fix for a Life Coloring Book coloring session (especially for kids, ages 3 and up). Oversized coloring books will be provided as well as jumbo crayons.

5:00–6:30PM
Soft Cover Book Binding for Artists and Publishers, With Small Editions
Learn how to create handcrafted books with a practicing bookbinder from Small Editions. During this workshop participants will learn how to fold and manipulate paper using specialist bookbinding tools, and will learn two versatile book structures – the pamphlet, the concertina, and the Japanese stab binding – which can be used to make artists books, present work, or to give as gifts. On completion of the workshop students will leave with a set of their own books and the skills to make more at home using minimal equipment.

Sunday, June 4

1:30-3:00PM
Memory Factory, Present by Parsons Fine Arts MFA
This project by Scynge Yunxin Xing explores how people’s experience and memories shape and influence the understanding of the books they just read and looked at. Xing will invite people for a conversation and ask various questions about the books they just read. In the end, a book will be made based on the answers and information collected from the conversation. It will be the book about the memories of books

3:00PM
Armageddon: Google Chess Victory
Endless Editions is proud to present the first ever Armageddon Chess Tournament.
Armageddon :: Google “Chess Victory” is an irreverent, sudden-death, winner-takes-all chess tournament. Armageddon sudden death play has a peculiar set of rules where games are started by drawing pieces to determine which color you will play. The player who wields black will have draw-advantage, meaning: if white does not check-mate black within the allotted time, black wins. In standard chess rules, the player who draws white is given advantage by making the first move, thereby dictating how strategy will be used.

Instead of following traditional rules, this tournament will feature extreme, and possibly not fair, methods of leveling the playing field, which will be announced the day of the tournament.

 

EXTENDED PROGRAMS SERIES (TEXAS)

Sunday, June 4

1:00-3:00PM
Artists Books Resource Roundtable and Q & A
Artists, writers, and publishers are invited to register for open conversations with some of the most fascinating curators, dealers, librarians, and organizers in New York. The intention of this program is to nurture discourse, discovery, and collaboration within the emerging publishing community. The first half of the program will be reserved for the roundtable discussions, topics will include: accessing local collections and diverse resources, learning about upcoming opportunities, and gaining feedback about publishing projects.

At 2:00PM, the program will be open to the public for a Group Discussion and Q&A moderated by Small Editions Director, Corina Reynolds.

Roundtable participants will receive a complimentary copy of Matter of Fact, a guide to NYC artists book resources (will also be available for purchase at the fair ) including an index of artists book collections, book shops, printers, binders, and workshops in the city.

Register by email at info@blondeartbooks.com, with the subject line Artists Books Resource Roundtable.

Presenters include: Glory Edim (Publishing Outreach Specialist at Kickstarter and founder of Well-Read Black Girl), Paul Romain (Programs and Development Manager at the Center for Book Arts), Max Schumann (Executive Director of Printed Matter), David Senior (Senior Bibliographer at MoMA Library), Robbin Ami Silverberg, (Artist & Director of Dobbin Mill / Dobbin Books), Farris Wahbeh (Benjamin and Irma Weiss Director of Research at the Whitney Museum of American Art), Tony White, (Associate Chief Librarian of the Thomas J. Watson Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art), Martha Wilson (Founder of Franklin Furnace).

3:30-5:00PM
Artist-Run Reading Spaces, Panel & Book Display
From 1975 to 1978 in Amsterdam, Ulises Carrión operated Other Books and So, an artist-run bookstore and exhibition space dedicated to artists’ books and ephemera, which served as a key point of interchange between Latin American and European artists’ publishing communities. Drawing upon this example, this discussion brings together the founders of artist-run bookstores, libraries, and reading rooms. Ideas of circulation, access, and “making public” intersect both libraries and experimental publishing practices, and artist-run reading spaces offer alternative ways of actualizing these ideas outside of institutional paradigms. More than distribution points for texts, they function as social spaces of reading. Panelists will join in a 90-minute discussion of their projects, to be accompanied by a casual book display including items selected by the presenters and items from MoMA Library.

Panelists:
Gee Wesley, Ulises, Philadelphia
Rachel Valinsky, Wendy’s Subway, Brooklyn, NY
David Richardson, Dispersed Holdings, NYC
Kimi Hanauer, Press Press, Baltimore
Devin N. Morris, Brown Paper Zine Fair, 3 Dot Zine, Brooklyn, NY
Moderator: Sarah Hamerman, Artist Book Cataloger, MoMA Library

5:30-7:00PM
‘Nontsikelelo Mutiti convenes a community conversation centered around Black publishing and self determination. The discussion will be anchored by looking at the precedent set by the existence of The Negro Motorist Green Book published by New York City mailman Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1966, and The Black Book published in 1974.

This discussion seeks to investigate the role of publishing in the Black community today and asks the audience and panel to imagine what The Green Book and The Black Book of the 21st Century. What form could should these publications take? What could the table of contents be?

 

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About Blonde Art Books

Established by Sonel Breslav in 2012, Blonde Art Books is dedicated to sharing ideas, resources, and materials regarding independent publishing of art and poetry books. The blog strives to disseminate information about publishers and bookstores, artist and exhibition opportunities, and book production and funding resources.

In addition, Blonde Art Books has curated exhibition and organized programing at venues such as PS1, MoMA, Queens, NY; ICA, Philadelphia, PA; Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, PA; Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH; Hyde Part Center, Chicago, IL; and The Silent Barn, Brooklyn, NY.

 

 

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