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Book Arts |
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.
Find out more here.
Image: Works by BABE exhibitor Bunny Bissoux.
Our Spring – Summer 2026 edition is the first of two issues publishing presentations from abbe 2025 – a two-day conference held at Artspace Mackay, Queensland, Australia, bringing into focus the innovative world of artists book practice in the region. Practicing artists, postgraduate students and professionals in the field presented papers examining two distinct themes – ‘Contemporary Artists Book Practice’ and ‘Mapping Australia’s Artists Book Histories: A Group Effort’.
In a first for the conference, abbe – organised by Tim Mosely, Caren Florance, Marian Crawford and Robyn Wood, formed two compelling partnerships in their ambition to advance and celebrate Australian artists’ books practice, joining forces with Artspace Mackay with their nationally renowned Libris Awards, and The Blue Notebook: Journal for Artists’ Books.
Papers presented are published over Volume 20 and 21 of The Blue Notebook in Spring and Autumn 2026.
Cheng (Christine) Dong has designed these two special editions. Cheng (Christine) Dong has designed these two special editions. Cover and featured artist pages for this issue by Chris Wong.
Download your free copy and browse all back issues here.
Image: Detail from Frozen Resilience, a bookwork by Chris Wong, @chris.wonghf.
The Artist’s Book Yearbook is a resource for artists, collectors, librarians, academics, students, curators, publishers, researchers and anyone interested in artists’ books!
The new edition of the ABYB 2026 – 2027 has essays and features on contemporary book arts, interviews, and investigations of artists’ practices. In a special celebration of 40 years of collaborative practice by Uta Schneider and Ulrike Stoltz as ‹usus›, we publish two essays reflecting on their work as artists utilising books, letterpress, sound and installation.
Artists have listed 470+ recent book works. You will also find information on bookshops, print studios, binderies, artist’s book fairs, supplier services, galleries, institutions, libraries and collections, reference books, journal, societies, organisations, workshops and courses etc. Edited by Sarah Bodman. Published by Impact Press at The Centre for Print Research, University of the West of England, Bristol. Cover design by Tom Sowden, celebrating ‹usus›. B&W print throughout, 288pp, 21 x 29.7 cm. ISBN 978-1-906501-40-2.
Order your copy with:
UK postage here.
International postage here. Thank you.
Image: Detail from the ABYB 2026 – 2027 cover, designed by Tom Sowden.
WBN United Artists put out a call for responses to a text or book about mountains. Our starting point for 2026 was recommended by Nancy Campbell – Nan Shepherd’s book The Living Mountain: A Celebration of the Cairngorm Mountains of Scotland, Canongate Canons, 2011. We invited artists, writers, students and the public to make work and send us a recommendation for a shared bibliography of mountains inspired reading.
We received 200+ entries posted by 188 artists in Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK, USA.
Works are on display in Bower Ashton Library until 31st July. More information about the exhibition can be found 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 WBN artist’s book created by Imi Maufe, inspired by: Frislid, Ragnar. 1967. Fjell i Norge (Mountains in Norway), Cappelen.
Publication and Exhibition 2026: How we read books (for Stephen Emmerson) is a collaboration between Sarah Bodman, Stephen Emmerson, Artist’s Book Club at UWE and book friends.
Following Stephen Emmerson’s talk here at UWE Bristol in November 2025 our students, staff and visitors were thrilled to discover different ways into ‘reading’ and approaching books that suited their own paths and inspired new understanding and ideas.
We invited Stephen to run a workshop showing us some of his methods for reading books in January and met again for a show and tell in February 2026. We then set about making our own non textual readings or creating templates and using tools to create our pages for a collaborative book.
Our artist’s book is printed in a limited edition of 150 copies, shared between contributors and the library, and will be launched at BABE 26-27 June 2026, followed by an exhibition of the works made for the book from September – October 2026 here at UWE.
Image: A performative reading of the ‘Carrot Shield’ by Marian Kilpatrick, which you can listen to here.
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 The Other Side of Silence (I, II and III) by Michelle Cioccoloni. You can find out more about the Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here project on the LAAF Festival website.
