PAPERLUST Photobook Fest is a new biennial on the map of photographic events in Europe, stemmed from love to paper. The first edition of PAPERLUST starts on the 24th of May, in parallel to the Krakow Photomonth Festival. PAPERLUST is one of the first festivals in Poland dedicated solely to photographic publications.
PAPERLUST is built on the basis of regional collaborations and aims to present the local self-publishing scene to a wider audience. The motivation behind the festival is to allow the discovery of lesser-known European art scenes, encourage mutual artistic exchange, and explore the power of self-publishing as an offline medium, co-existing in the era of the Internet.
The first edition of the festival, Art and self-publishing as a tool for social change, is focused on the Visegrad region and was created in close collaboration with the festival’s partners from Poland (Krakow Photomonth, MOCAK library), Slovakia (Hardness&Blackness), Czech (FOTOGRAF) and Hungary (The Studio of Young Artists’ Association, ISBN).
The PAPERLUST Fest introduces the concept of various approaches towards an art book in its relation to the capital, format, motivation of the author, and the distribution model. Three exhibitions, forming the core of the festival, are designed to express this division. The purpose is to stir a discussion around the photobook’s role in society, and new ways of approaching the medium in the era of the Internet and online communication.
PHOTOBOOK. STORYTELLING (Fundacja Sztuki Nowej Znaczy Się, 24.05 – 14.06.19) is a carefully designed exhibition that presents the most interesting samples of the photobooks from the region that have been made out of the need to convey, usually a personal story, published in the low- budget small editions.
Photobooks produced with more of financial and professional support, either by the artists themselves or by publishing houses, are presented at the PHOTOBOOK. ASSET (Galeria I!, 24.05 – 14.06.19). This exhibition focuses on the economic and prestige aspect of art publications.
The third exhibition, PHOTOBOOK. PROCESS (Nośna Gallery and Apteka Gallery, 24.05 – 02.06.19), complements the two shows. The display focuses on the production aspect of publications, describing different ways and phases of creating a book, also emphasising the role of a team working on more advanced productions. To bring the audience closer to the process, we invited two artists to work on their photobooks during the show. Viktor Kopasz and Tomasz Laczny will be making their books directly in the exhibition space.
In addition to the exhibitions, PAPERLUST offers a series of accompanying events; PHOTOBOOK AND ZINE FAIR, WORKSHOP, PHOTOBOOK DUMMY REVIEW and CHILL ZONE / Photobook Library + Kids Zone.
The structure of the festival is based on cooperation with local partners and experts in the field. As a recurring event, every edition of PAPERLUST will focus on different parts of Europe and work with regional institutions, aiming to become an important photobook hub on the contemporary art scene.
The project is co-financed by the Governments of Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia through Visegrad Grants from International Visegrad Fund. The mission of the fund is to advance ideas for sustainable regional cooperation in Central Europe.