The Leeds International Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair


Guest post by Louise Atkinson @LoubieTheArtist

This year, on the 8th and 9th March, the International Contemporary Artist’s Book Fair will take over the Parkinson Court at the University of Leeds. The project, by John McDowall and Chris Taylor, originated back in 1998 at Dean Clough Galleries in Halifax, as a response to the lack of book arts opportunities outside of London. Now in its 16th year, and reinstated at the University of Leeds, the project has gone from strength to strength with national and international connections.

Although I’d been aware of the project for a few years before I got involved, it wasn’t till 2008, and an open call for artist books for a show in Leeds Art Gallery that I finally plucked up the courage to get in touch. Book arts had been a recent discovery for me after seeing (and admiring) the work of Sarah Mitchell, herself a student at the Leeds College of Art at the time. I’d also undertaken my first book arts exhibition in Manchester the previous year and had turned into a bit of a bibliophile.

In the meantime, social media had started to become more mainstream, so I was looking for ways to justify the inordinate amount of time I was spending on Facebook, and wondered if I could incorporate it into my art practice somehow. The realisation that I had a possible international network of artists at my fingertips seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, so I decided to create a Facebook group (called Artist Book Collective) dedicated to finding other book artists, with a view to developing a democratic resource to help members to curate offline shows.

Our first exhibition opportunity came soon after, so with no budget, a lot of favours, and 6 weeks to create something, we organised the opening exhibition for the Bowery in Headingley in June 2008 . Having already made contact with Chris and John through their Leeds Art Gallery show, I invited them along. They seemed really interested with the concept and how the project could develop, so the next time I told them I was curating a show, they were only too happy to support. The second ABC exhibition took place in the School of Design in parallel with the Artists’ Book Fair, and contributed to the fringe element of the fair, now called PAGES.

Since then, ABC have produced a new collaborative exhibition alongside the book fair almost every year, the biggest of these in 2011, which included work by over 80 artists from the UK, US, Australia, Europe and the Middle East . The use of social media as a pivotal method for engaging artists and audiences has been of interest to the book fair, I have now been invited to work with them to help develop their web and social media presence. Given that PAGES, is now set to become a year round project, it’s an exciting opportunity for me to expand on my book art interests and get involved in more projects.

PAGES | International Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair will take place at Parkinson court, University of Leeds from 12noon – 6pm on Friday 8th March and 10am – 5pm on Saturday 9th March. Further details of the fair, including city wide related exhibitions and events can be found at http://leedsartbookfair.com

[1]  From Book to Book, Leeds Art Gallery, March 2008

[1]  Bibliomania, Holden Gallery, Manchester Metropolitan University, Jan 2007

[1]  Time and Space, The Bowery, Leeds, June – Aug 2008

[1]  (sub)Missive, Corridor Gallery, University of Leeds, March 2009

[1]  Home from Home, 153 Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, March 2011