About Bookmarks XII

Bookmarks XII: Infiltrating the Library System
September 2014 - February 2015

Welcome to Bookmarks XII. This annual series aims to encourage appreciation of work in the format of the artist's book. Participating artists each produce an edition of 100 signed and numbered bookmarks to give away through distribution boxes at 10 venues around the world. This year they are going to independent bookshops, art centres, galleries and libraries, including the world's smallest literature house (in Røldal, Norway). All venues are open to the public, in: Australia, Canada, Norway (three venues), the UK and USA.

475 artists have contributed 47,500 bookmarks to the twelve projects to date. The artists' bookmarks are divided into 100 sets; one full set being sent to each of the contributing artists and the rest divided and sent in distribution boxes to participating host venues around the world, for visitors to take. Each bookmark has the website address which brings visitors here to the gallery of artworks online, in the hope that people will find out more about the artists' involved in the project.

Over the last twelve years, the Bookmarks series of free artwork distribution has visited 125 galleries, bookstores, workshops, centres, schools and libraries in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Switzerland, Turkey, the UK and USA.

Bookmarks XII includes 52 artists from: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the UK, and the USA. This year, ten artists from Karingallery in Geelong, Australia collaborated on three sets of bookmarks between them for the project, and the artist/programme coordinator Zoe Snyder also made a set of 100. Karingallery is also hosting one of the venue boxes for Bookmarks XII.

All of the bookmarks have been archived in the gallery section here on the website, with each artist's contact details, so you can visit their websites and see more of their book works. We have a brilliant selection of bookmarks this year created with a wide range of processes, from: recycled book pages, blind embossing, letterpress, lithography, screenprint, hand cut, photography, hand painted, stencilled, rubber stamps, hand drawn, and more. The Italian artist Loretta Cappanera even managed to make her 100 stamped and painted bookmarks in transit, starting with an 11.5-hour flight from Frankfurt to San Francisco!

Many thanks to all the artists who have participated this year, especially Molly Lemon, who made a set of bookmarks as an artist, and volunteered for the intern position here to help out. Molly spent two weeks here in June scanning, stamping and packing all the artists and venue sets for posting out before moving on to her summer job. Molly is now in her final year as an undergraduate student at Winchester School of Art, UK, and we hope she will be back to see us in the future. Thank you so much Molly!

Thanks to all our venue hosts for participating, and also a big thank you to David Dellafiora who introduced the Karingallery artists to the project this year.