Two-day Artist's Book Conference

Traditional and emerging formats of artists’ books: Where do we go from here?

9th and 10th July 2009 at the School of Creative Arts, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. 10am – 5pm each day.

We believe that content is paramount for any artist’s book, yet format is also part of its context. We are currently working on a 2-year AHRC funded project (www.ahrc.ac.uk) at the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England, UK: What will be the canon for the artist’s book in the 21st Century? Our aim is to create a manifesto for a canon of the 21st Century artist’s book, to be published in February 2010.

The study will consider the traditional publishing formats for artists’ books and assess their potential for future expansion within the field. We also aim to quantify how artists are using new technologies and screen-based media as publishing tools.

Johanna Drucker stated in 2005 that "…we don't have a good, specific, descriptive vocabulary on which to form our assessment of book works.” (see the whole article online at http://www.philobiblon.com/bonefolder/ Critical issues/Exemplary works, Johanna Drucker, The Bonefolder, Volume 1, Number 2, Spring 2005).

We would like to address some of these problems with input from the international community, and will publish all our results as freely and accessibly as possible. We think that perhaps “book arts” or “artists’ books” have become too small an umbrella; perhaps “artists’ publications” would give us a better heading to start classifying and contextualising the field.

Sarah Bodman and Tom Sowden
Centre for Fine Print Research
School of Creative Arts
University of the West of England
Kennel Lodge Road
Bristol
BS3 2JT
UK
Sarah.Bodman@uwe.ac.uk / Tom.Sowden@uwe.ac.uk
www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/canon.htm

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Comment by Valeria Brancaforte on November 23, 2008 at 4:01am

Hello! I would love to attend! Is this event linked in any way to Impact?