Generative ARTZINES is the final outcome of the research project started in 2015 by artist publisher and researcher Antoine Lefebvre about fanzine culture. He worked in collaboration with the Objet Papier collective to imagine a unique type of web to print publication. They used accessible web tools such as css, html and javascript to create a printed publication, thus using a new way to make graphic design without the usual hegemonic softwares. Both the text and the graphic design of this publication will be generated by a custom online platform from the collection of 90 interviews gathered by Lefebvre and each downloaded PDF will be different custom made for its reader. This talk is related to the performance that Objet Papier will present on their table. During the event, visitors will be able to get their own unique copy of the book. First, they will interact with a chatbot and answer a few questions imagined by the author. Then the publication will be printed and bound on-site from a unique PDF generated using the answers of each visitor.

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, printing an independent publication is extremely difficult, as it presents problems such as economic difficulties, distribution, and lack of cultural support and recognition. It is even more difficult when what is printed is a testimony that documents the passage of our community. Until not long ago we were understood as subjects of exploration.

Through his projects, Luis tries to connect with the racialized, questioning the hegemonies present in the editorial field. He proposes a review of the act of memory in books: how is our history shown? Who has access to tell our stories, only the academy? How do we understand cultural appropriation? This talk proposes to review our affective past and revisit our history to create new narratives. Create a document that serves as a collective archive for future generations. Use photography and paper as a means to manifest those twisted and broken voices of the past, those that do not fit into institutions or the status quo of photography.

Credits
Image by Yun Ping 昀平 for Balam N10: Bohemia.

Recreo Art Books’ third publication explores the concept of territory and its impact on contemporary publishing practices. The result of a collaboration between the Cairo Art Book Fair and Recreo Valencia Art Book Fair, the project examines how identity, language, politics, migration, and other factors of each territory affect independent publishing. Through the testimony of different profiles, a journey is traced along the Mediterranean to analyze the similarities and differences that make up our shared identity. Published in Arabic and Spanish, the publication offers multiple paths for reading about what we now understand as contemporary publishing from the Mediterranean.

Middle East Archive is a publishing platform dedicated to rediscovering and celebrating the
visual narratives of the Middle East and Maghreb. With a keen curatorial vision, Middle East Archive highlights everyday moments and interactions that reflect the authentic lived experiences of these regions, presenting them through candid, unfiltered photography.

Centered on photography, Middle East Archive collaborates with photographers to breathe new life into their archival collections, showcasing diverse styles, perspectives, and subject matters. This platform thrives on the creative contributions of a multitude of voices, constantly evolving and flourishing with the times.

Middle East Archive transcends traditional forms of archiving; it challenges reductive narratives and preconceived notions by exploring contemporary expressions and mixed media formats. Combining print and digital mediums, Middle East Archive pushes the boundaries of traditional publishing, making diverse and compelling visual stories from the region accessible.

Middle East Archive was founded by Romaisa Baddar, a curator committed to amplifying underrepresented voices. With Middle East Archive Romaisa Baddar, focusses on bringing a unique perspective that challenges conventions and encourages fresh interpretations of the Middle East and North Africa.

Design documents such as maps, signs, contracts and real estate branding play an important role in maintaining that private property in capitalism is sacred. This has its direct origins in European colonialism, during which people and land were stolen, commodified and exploited.

Today, exploitation continues through brands and the rational language of finance, leading to practices that harm the environment and exploit people in the global south. In this talk, designer and writer Ruben Pater reflects on the historical implication of capitalism and graphic design, and what we can learn from collective and sustainable practices in Latin America and beyond.

Ruben Pater is a graphic designer at a time when design is the last thing the world needs. In search of ethical alternatives, he designs, writes and teaches. After graduating in graphic design, Ruben Pater worked as a designer for different studios in the Netherlands. His work experience led him to pursue a master’s degree at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam, which he completed in 2012. His practice has combined journalism, activism and graphic design under the name Untold Stories. He is the author of two books on visual communication and design: The Politics of Design (2016) and CAPS LOCK (2021). He currently resides in Barcelona and teaches at the EINA School of Design and Art, the Elisava School of Design and Engineering and the BAU Faculty of Arts and Design in Barcelona.

‘Jiser’ is a non-profit association based in Barcelona, ​​whose aim is to promote artistic creation and the use of art as a tool for social transformation in the Mediterranean area. In this line, they develop a stable programme of residencies for visual artists that connects different cities in the region since 2010, they organise exhibitions and generate spaces for meeting, dialogue and exchange. In addition, they have their own publishing house and co-publish the magazine Polisemias, together with the collective Sabers migrants. Since 2020 they have also distributed editions by artists/photographers from the southern Mediterranean, which would otherwise be difficult to reach Spain.

La Chambre Claire is an independent association based in Algiers, Algeria, which brings together several interconnected entities: a publishing house focused on photography, a film production company, a brand of handmade stationery products and a place of learning. Together, they aspire to create an ecosystem where image and photography are celebrated and preserved, serving as catalysts for creativity and innovation. Its aim is to enrich the artistic panorama in Algeria by highlighting works that provoke reflection and emotion.

Meet, touch and hear about Syndicat’s print work over the past ten years. From the studio’s beginnings to the publishing house Empire and the graphic design magazine Revue Faire.

Sacha Léopold and François Havegeer have been working together as Syndicat since 2012. Their interdisciplinary practice encompasses both their own projects and design commissions. They address issues of originality, reproduction and reproducibility in the context of contemporary art, using their extensive knowledge of printing and manufacturing techniques, whether in book design, creating visual identities or curating exhibitions.

Syndicat has actively collaborated with contemporary artists and art centres to create unique visual identity programmes, publications, monographs and artist books, leading in 2015 to the creation of Empire, their own publishing label. Alongside their design projects, they have curated several exhibitions exploring the process of printing techniques.

More info soon…

This year, Recreo Valencia Art Book Fair will celebrate its fourth edition at the Peter Rock Hall! On Saturday night, the 19th, we will start the evening with a special performance by Nawan and the Politonos. Afterwards, we will enjoy a vibrant session by Vulva Vitamina. And to put the icing on the cake, Fag Hag will dazzle us with their sound show. Doors will open at 11:59 p.m.

→ BUY TICKETS HERE

More info soon…

Casa Planas was founded by the visual artist Marina Planas in 2015. A project that was born in response to the urgent need for a centre for interdisciplinary contemporary creation and interpretation of tourism in the Balearic Islands. In 2017, Planas started the “Uncovering Archive” residency programme as a relational and collective artistic project to promote artistic research and to innovatively awaken the Planas Archive, probably the most important documentary collection dedicated to the development of mass tourism and image. Currently, during 2024 and 2025, Casa Planas is developing its own collective research study on the effects of tourism on life and territory called Observatorio de Cultura Turística // COSTA. The research welcomes from different disciplines, sectors and perspectives an in-depth study of the tourism phenomenon with an ecological, scientific and artistic vision.

A 600-page book that brings together part of the work that Escif has done over the last 12 years.

A book that brings together paintings, stories, walls, trips, encounters, anecdotes, experiences, reflections and contradictions. A transversal story full of friendly and harmless pages, which proposes a critical distance from the speed and vertigo that governs our existence. An encyclopedic archive of images, poems and resistances. A printed gesture that could well materialize, beyond its content, with the versatility of its container.

Thus, this book, in rectangular form and hard cover, could well serve as a wedge with which to block the revolving doors of the Central Bank; as a companion for pleasure and adventure; as a small step on which to lean to jump a fence; as a cushion to sleep under a tree; as a throwing object aimed at a shop window; and also, why not, as a book, vindicating pause, silence and timelessness against the dominant paradigm of productivity.

In this volume, Lucía Boned presents us with an intimate and affectionate portrait of a way of looking at and inhabiting the world based on complicity, respect and enthusiasm: that of Silvia, Manolo and Manuel, body and soul since 1976 of the Pre-Textos publishing project and of a beautiful shared life. The publication is a first-person testimony of the practice of a sincere and lasting friendship, born of intuition and elective affinities around literature, cinema, music and beauty, and consolidated on the basis of responsibility and affection.

What began as an exercise in film documentation, archival research and oral memory, with more interest in the process than in the resolution of a product, ends up materializing in a book. It is not surprising that Lucía has found in this format the space of emotional resonance to pay tribute to these renowned editors and, even more, exceptional humans.

The book, in its sequential structure, unfolds like a landscape to be explored without haste, like a space where time is suspended. Lucía deconstructs the cinematographic principle of the illusion of movement and offers us a selection of snapshots that explore the relationship between human beings and their environment, moving between the natural and the symbolic. The testimonies, archive images, quotes and frames are interwoven following the principles of montage, where dissonance and the interruption of continuity generate a poetic and deeply emotional landscape. We read the images, observe the texts, and enjoy the pauses generated by the blank silences of the pages.

It is impossible not to be moved by this ode to the dedication to life represented by the Pre-Texts, which are, for many, a link, a home and a beacon of light.

Text by: Maite Muñoz Iglesias