ABOUT US

The Action/Interaction: Book/Arts Conference 2007 has been organized by The Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College Chicago.

The Center for Book & Paper Arts is dedicated to the teaching and exploration of concept and craft at the intersections of bookmaking, visual arts, and language. As the home of the Interdisciplinary MFA in Book & Paper, we are invested in fostering the production of art that explores the creative potential of the crafts of printing, papermaking, and bookbinding.

In support of this mission, the Center teaches workshops, produces exhibitions, sponsors artists residencies, hosts conferences, and publishes artists books and JAB: The Journal of Artists Books, a periodical dedicated to critical inquiry.

This conference has been organized by an enthusiastic group of alumni, faculty, staff, and current graduate students. The process of planning this conference has been remarkably engaging: It has provided us an opportunity to think about critical issues in our areas of interest (and we have a very diverse range of interests) and to examine how we can create experiences to explore these interests. Our planning meetings, in addition to encouraging us to examine our beliefs about book arts, have created a sense of community and it is our hope that the conference itself will extend and expand that community.

We are committed to promoting critical discourse in books arts: we think it is essential that we examine what we do as artists. In order to make work that is exciting, provocative, and serious we need to examine our methods, wonder about our audience, and define our goals. We are interested in the creative exploration of the intersection of book arts, artists books, poetry, installation, experimental literature, and other book-related creative endeavours. We hope this conference will provide a forum for furthering our goal of expanding the field of book arts in these directions.