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Book Arts |
Listings are open for the Artist’s Book Yearbook 2026-2027, it’s a resource for artists, collectors, librarians, academics, students, dealers, publishers, researchers and anyone interested in artists’ books!
Artists can list up to 3 of their recent book works.
You can also list your bookshop, print studio, bindery, artist’s book fair, supplier services, gallery, institution, library, reference book, journal, society, organisation, workshops or courses etc.
Download the form here and return before 9th January 2026.
At the Promised Place: Expanding Imagination Through Book Art> at the Urawa Art Museum brings together nearly 100 artists’ bookworks made in Japan and the UK. Since opening in 2000, Urawa Art Museum in Saitama, Japan has focused on ‘Art of Books’ as their collection policy to build a unique and international collection of book related artworks.
For this exhibition, artists’ books selected by Sarah Bodman at the University of the West of England, Bristol have been paired with a range of Japanese bookworks from the museum collection. The exhibition offers a site of conversation where not only the books from the two countries are in dialogue, but the visitors too are welcomed into the space to extend their imaginations around what book art is and can be.
Read more about the exhibition here.
Image: Detail from the exhibition poster.
World Book Night 2026 – The Mountains Are Calling… WBN United Artists invite you to read and respond to a text or book about mountains.
WBN is organised by Sarah Bodman and Linda Parr with input from Nancy Campbell. We invite you to make a 2D or 3D work (which must fold flat to fit into an A5 envelope for mailing) inspired by mountains to send for an exhibition and mail art swap. You can also nominate a book or text about mountains to share in our collaborative bibliography. Deadline 3rd March 2026. Download the full brief here.
Find out more about our past World Book Nights in the video ‘What We Do in the Shadows: bringing book arts into World Book Night’ here.
Image: Detail from a photo by Eberhard Grossgasteiger.
Written contributions to this issue include: In Making / Walking A Cappella Abigail Reynolds discusses her approach to and use of the book, from Georges Perec’s cataloguing systems to working in and with the landscapes of Cornwall. “As is proper to considerations of time, and the land, and artworks, the book sections do not stop with existing books, but project into the future”.
Corina Reynolds Executive Director of Center for Book Arts, New York, reflects on Vico’s Spiral: Half Century of Artists’ Books, a recent exhibition curated by Robbin Ami Silverberg and Carole Naggar that celebrated the 50th anniversary of CBA through its exhibitions’ history.
Phantom Library is an experimental inquiry into the ontology of the book and the logic of classification within library systems. Cheng (Christine) Dong revisits the identity of books and their relation to the spaces that shelter them.
In I Kill You in Dreams by Beldan Sezen and the Artist’s Book as Relational Entity, Eliza Strong reviews Beldan Sezen’s artist’s book I Kill You in Dreams (2024), highlighting its function in exposing and disrupting narratives that assert the necessity of war.
Inspired by the discovery of The Polar Tombola: A Book of Banished Words by Nancy Campbell as a model for collaborative book-making, Ruth Hallinan Assistant Manager of The National Irish Visual Arts Library (NIVAL) shows some examples of works created by visitors during their open days.
Cover and artist’s pages by Yunqi Peng a graphic designer, researcher and intercultural book-making practitioner exploring alternative bookstores and art book fairs.
Download your free copy and browse all back issues here.
Image: Detail from a bookwork by Yunqi Peng @cheapball_yunqi.
Save the date for Bristol Artist’s Book Event at UWE Bristol Fine Art studios at Spike Island, Fri 26 and Sat 27 June 2026.
Bristol Artist’s Book Event (BABE) is a biennial showcase of artists’ books activity with 100+ artists and small presses exhibiting their works to the public for sale. Organised by Sarah Bodman (UWE) and Tom Sowden (Boomsatsuma).
Our focus for 2026 is BABE Looking East. Curators and artists from Japan will showcase works as part of the 2-day event. We hope you can come along! Free event, open to all.
Image: Bladr at BABE 2022. Photo: Niamh Fahy.
This touring exhibition is part of the ongoing al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here Coalition projects. The online Inventory gallery was launched to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street on 5th March 2012, for which project partners around the world held commemorative readings and events. The gallery pages show images and information for each of the 260 books completed for the project.
Exhibitions held since the launch of the tour include:
The Westminster Reference Library, Westminster, UK; The Powell Library Rotunda, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA; Salt & Cedar Letterpress Studio, Detroit, Michigan, USA; The Cambridge Arts Council, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA; The Santa Fe University of Art and Design, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA; The John Rylands Library, Manchester, UK; The San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, California, USA; Gallery Route One, Point Reyes, California USA; the Center for Book Arts, New York in association with Alwan for the Arts, Columbia University Libraries Butler Library, International Print Center New, Poets House, New York, USA; Literary & Philosophical Society Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK; Collins Memorial Library, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington, USA; Curry College, Milton, Massachusetts, USA; American University in Cairo, Egypt; Arab – British Centre, London, UK; The Mosaic Rooms, London, UK; Kate Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts at the University Of Southern Maine, USA; The Hague Public Library, The Netherlands; Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University, St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada; Jaffe Center for Books Arts, Florida Atlantic University, USA; Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County, Rochester, New York, USA; Goddard College, Vermont, USA; Arab American National Museum, Dearborn/Detroit, Michigan, USA; Idaho Center for the Book in partnership with The Arts and Humanities Institute at Boise State University, USA; George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, USA; Herron School of Art and Design, The Herron Art Library of IUPUI University library, USA; Keats House and the Iraqi Cultural Centre, London; the Arab American National Museum, Dearborn, USA; Idaho Center for the Book in partnership with The Arts and Humanities Institute at Boise State University; Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here DC 2016 a partnership between George Mason University’s School of Art and George Mason University Libraries, Split This Rock, Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, McLean Project for the Arts, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University, Busboys and Poets, Georgetown University, Cultural DC, Smithsonian Libraries, Brentwood Arts Exchange, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Northern Virginia Community College, George Mason University Student Media and Fourth Estate Newspaper; Rosenberg Library at the City College of San Francisco, USA; Konstlitografiska museet, Helliden, Sweden; Hatcher Library, University of Michigan, USA; UC Santa Barbara Library, California, USA.
Image: Detail from My Poem Becomes Theirs by Helga Butzer Felleisen. You can find out more about the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project on the LAAF Festival website.
