PAGES: Reset

Parkinson Building, University of Leeds, UK Friday 17th March 2023, 11am – 5pm & Saturday 18th March 2023, 10am – 4pm

ARTIST BOOK FAIR PARTICIPANTS

ABPress AMBruno Anna Shilonosova Art and Design & Graphic Design and Communication, University of Leeds Art Byte Critique BA(Hons) Visual Communication, Leeds Arts University Best Books by Bernard & Anwyl Café Royal Books Chloe Cooper Coin-Operated Press David Armes David Barton David Faithfull Essence Press Fine Art Leeds Gemma Lacey Gnobilis Press Gordian Projects Guy Bigland Helen Douglas / Weproductions HG Makes Incline Press intergraphia Jackie Chettur Joan Ainley Joan Newall Artist Book Maker John McDowall Leslie Gerry Editions Longbarrow Press MakingSpace Morley House Mr Smith New Arcadian Press Noelle Griffiths & Andrew Morrison Pat Hodson Rochelle Asquith Rock-Tree-Landscape Rosaleen Williams Ruth Martin SALT+SHAW Sophie Loss The Caseroom Press The Mindful Editions Tim Shore whnicPRESS Wild Pansy Press

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Helen Douglas – A Venetian Brocade
Friday 17th March, 6pm – 7pm, Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds 

Our keynote speaker for PAGES: Reset is Dr Helen Douglas, artist and publisher based in Yarrow, Scotland. As co-editor of Weproductions imprint for over forty years, Helen’s work “resides in book”. Thinking through sequence, she explores her material using the codex, concertina and scroll formats. Her work can be viewed in major gallery, library and museum collections worldwide.

Helen is one of eleven contemporary artists and writers whose work is included in the exhibition Shifting Borders: A Journey to the Centre of Our Worlds, displayed alongside historic artefacts relating to travel, migration and maps, all from the Brotherton Library’s Special Collections. An insight into the content, development, collaboration and production of her pivotal artist’s book A Venetian Brocade (Weproductions, 2010) will form the core of her illustrated talk.

Places are limited. Please reserve your free ticket here.

ROUNDTABLE EVENT

Karen Babayan, Frank Finlay and Sophie Loss
Saturday 18th March, 1pm – 2pm, Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds

Three artists, writers and curators come together to discuss notions of home, and what it means to visit locations, cities and countries felt to be out of bounds as a result of displacement, genocide and political upheaval. 

Karen Babayan is of Armenian-British heritage. She was born in Iran and moved to the UK in 1978 at the age of 16 due to the impending Islamic Revolution. She is a multi-media artist and writer, several of her book works have been published in collaboration with the Wild Pansy Press.  

Frank Finlay is Emeritus Professor of German Language and Literature at the University of Leeds, UK. His research and publications focus on 20th/21st Century literature and society, the public role of the intellectual and, more recently, on German memory culture in a transnational context.  

Sophie Loss is an artist whose practice, in the form of books and paper constructs, materialises impossible images and structures. She directs the artists’ book coalition, AMBruno. She was born to a Polish Jewish family and grew up in Israel, and originally came to the UK to study. 

Places are limited. Please reserve your free ticket here

READINGS & PRESENTATIONS

Poetry and prose from new and recent publications presented by participants in the Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair
Friday 17th & Saturday 18th March, OPEN MIC – Various times, café area, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds 

EXHIBITION

Shifting Borders: A Journey to the Centre of Our Worlds(s)
Treasures of the Brotherton Gallery, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds

Guest curated by Chris Taylor, artist and Professor of Fine Art Practice at the University of Leeds, and co-Director of PAGES, this exhibition explores how artists, authors and collectors have mapped, documented or envisaged the world in which they live and beyond. With the ever-increasing shift of populations across borders due to international and civil strife, transient migrant workers, and the futile construction of barriers to keep people apart, map books remain a record of global land demarcation, protection and ownership, and the hope for a better life.

The objects on display date from the fifteenth century to the present day. They illustrate how historically certain people, groups, governments and organisations came to understand notions of place, identity, ownership and sovereignty, and how contemporary artists and writers have undertaken or contemplated travel, movement and relocation through mapping, both literally and metaphorically.

At the centre of the exhibition is Peregrinatio in terram sanctam (1486), a collaboration between a cleric and an artist at a time when European book production was in its infancy and acknowledged as the first ever illustrated travel guide. Other artefacts surrounding this innovative publication include artists’ books by Karen Babayan, Nicky Bird, Helen Douglas, Déirdre Kelly, John McDowall, Graham Martin, Harriet Tarlo, Judith Tucker and herman de vries, and notebooks by author and playwright Tony Harrison.

23rd January – 21st December 2023, Tuesday to Saturday, 10am – 5pm

Free exhibition – Open to all.

For further information click here.