Sunday 13 July 2025,
12.00 – 17.00
At the clubhouse of Volkstuinvereniging Streven Naar Verbetering (SNV)
Roel Langerakweg 33, Rotterdam
→ Enter through the community garden gate and stay left until you reach the clubhouse
Free Entry
Join PrintRoom’s friendly Books Are Bridges Art Book Fest taking place at the clubhouse of Rotterdam’s community garden (SNV). For this occasion, PrintRoom will gather over 30 local and international publishers and artists. The day programme will be filled with outdoor book presentations, workshops for all ages, lively talks, and music.
Books Are Bridges programme:
12:00 – 12:15 and 17:00 – 17:15 Total Body Workout, by Kexin Hao
13:00 – 16:00 Scroll for Today’s Weather, letterpress and block print workshop for all ages by Paul Gangloff, Chaeyoung Kim, and Czarina Calinawagan
14:00 – 17:00 Print-it, ARTZINES Adventures!, presentation and activation by Antoine Lefebvre and Ronan Deshaies (Objet Papier)
16:00 Dreams to Remember, bbok presentation by Matt Plezier with Moritz Grünke (we make it)
Food: Rowan’s Taxi-Falafel
Music by Ash K
Participating publishers:
Amy Suo Wu (NL), Antoine Levebvre / Artzines & Objet Papier (FR), Archive Everyday Panties & Not Just A Collective (NL), Bebebooks (BE), Bergen Art Book Fair / Pamflett (NO), Biblioteka (UK), Building fictions (NL), Common Imprint (DE/KR), Edition Taube (CH), Fucking Good Art (NL), Good Neighbour (NL), Half Letter Press & Public Collectors (US), Hum Drum Press (NL), Jap Sam (NL), Jesse Presse (NL), This was a project (NL), Lady Liberty Press (AT), Limestone Books (NL), Benjamin Li (NL), Maurice van Es (NL), MonoRhetorik (NL), Terry Bleu (NL), The Eriskay Connection (NL), The Nose (UK), Gloria Glitzer / we make it (DE), Rahel Zoller (UK), PrintRoom (NL), Reading Sideways Press (NL), Sarmad (NL), Soft Concern Hard Concern (NL), Short Pieces That Move (NL), The Everyday Press (UK), Unformed Informed (Publishing) (NL), 51 Personae (CN), and more!
More information about the Books Are Bridges Publishing Summit:
The Books Are Bridges Art Book Fest is an annual event organised within the scope of the Books Are Bridges Publishing Summit. It was initiated as a small-scale gathering for and with artist publishers and experts in this field.
Through an in-depth exchange spread over three days, the programme includes presentations, workshops, shared meals, and more. By initiating this gathering, PrintRoom intends to contribute to the support system and network that encompasses publishing practices, initiatives, and spaces. Simply put, this meeting is an occasion to spend qualitative time together, connecting genuinely through showing, telling, making, eating, and conversing around a shared passion for artist publishing.
This year’s edition is dedicated to archives for artist publications. Together with kindred spirits
from different generations and cultural backgrounds, we take time to intimately explore our collections, discuss our vernacular archiving methods, and reflect on the questions often accompanying our archival practices: How may the archive remain faithful to the intention of a widespread publication while preserving its fragile content? How do we give access to our archives? How can we support archives that are endangered by political crisis or those operating under a fragile economy whose longevity is no longer guaranteed? Special guests in this programme are Mela Dávila Freire (DE/ES), Sam Kim /Common Imprint (DE/KR), Hlib Velyhorskyi / Biblioteka Kyiv (UK/UA), Maike Aden (FR), Marc Fischer/ Public Collectors (US), Antoine Lefebvre / Artzines & Objet Papier /Generative Artzines (FR).
The Books are Bridges Summit was first initiated in 2022 by Karin de Jong of PrintRoom and Elenor Vonne Brown of The Nose (and previously X Marks the Bökship, UK). Each programme is developed in close collaboration with the participants. Previous editions were respectively focused on ‘collective practices and art book fairs’ (2022), ‘publishing platforms and networks of care’ (2023), and ‘spaces for artist publication’ (2024).
Images: Books Are Bridges Summit and Art Book Fest (2024, 2023, 2022), by Willem Mes.
Bottom right: Workshop ‘A Perfect Day’, coinciding with the book presentation Freinet Techniques by Paul Gangloff, image by Öncü Gültekin.
The title Books Are Bridges was inspired by the work of Claudia de la Torre (backbonebooks, Berlin). The flyer was designed by José Quintanar.
PrintRoom’s programme is kindly supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL and the City of Rotterdam. This programme received additional funding from Pictoright Fund and Stichting Volkskracht. The visit of Hlib Velyhorskyi, Sam Kim, Mela Dávila Freire and Marc Fischer is made possible by the International Visitors Programme of the Nieuwe Instituut with support from the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.