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The Classroom ︎
The Stage ︎
CABC ︎



Leave comments, share thoughts, and ask questions for each program’s participants.


About the Classroom +

The Classroom program series—a long-running feature of our Art Book Fairs—highlights exciting new releases and fosters dialogue around important themes within contemporary art publishing and the broader community. This year’s participants include Dayanita Singh, Chip Lord, Dodie Bellamy, Fia Backström, and Amy Sillman. Organized by David Senior, Head of the Library and Archives, SFMOMA.

  • Today’s Schedule
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    • 11am–12:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      “Well, is it even a photobook, Dayanita?” with Dayanita Singh and Anshika Varma
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      Dayanita Singh published her first artist’s book Zakir Hussain in 1986, and in doing so, challenged contemporary notions of photography, book, and form. Five years later, Steidl announced the publication of her student maquette as a three-part book object—a witness to her influence in expanding the book form. In this conversation, Singh speaks with Anshika Varma, founder of the publisher Offset Projects based in New Delhi, India, on the significance of provoking a space between the publishing house and the art gallery, and the endless possibilities presented within it. Presented by Offset Projects.

    • 12:30–2pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Beau Geste Press, in conversation with Felipe Ehrenberg, David Mayor, and Alice Motard
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      On the occasion of the newly launching eponymous publication Beau Geste Press, BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE shares insight into the practice and history of the eponymous publishing house. The program features two interviews between three co-founders of Beau Geste Press: Alice Motard with Felipe Ehrenberg, and then with David Mayor. Alice Motard is the chief curator at CAPC musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux and editor of this new publication. Presented by BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE.

    • 2–3:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Dark Room, with Phyllis Christopher, Michelle Tea, and Laura Guy
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      In 1988, at the age of 24, Phyllis Christopher was drawn to San Francisco with her camera to capture a thriving lesbian counterculture involving sex parties, kiss-ins, and street demonstrations. Join this Book Works program for an intimate conversation about lesbian sexuality and documentary on the occasion of Phyllis Christopher’s debut solo publication, Dark Room: San Francisco Sex and Protest, 1988–2003 (Book Works, 2021). Christopher will be in conversation with acclaimed author, poet, and organizer (and contributor to the book), Michelle Tea, along with Laura Guy, editor of Dark Room. Presented by Book Works.

    • 3:30–5pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Call & Response, with Kerry Ann Lee, Giulia Vallicelli, Helen Yeung, and Ysabelle Cheung
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      Call & Response is a conversation between international publishers exploring how independent publishing facilitates community-building through punk, protest, and zine-making. Giulia Vallicelli (Compulsive Archive, Milan, Italy), Helen Yeung (Migrant Zine Collective, Aotearoa, New Zealand) and Ysabelle Cheung (independent writer, Hong Kong) will share their work and talk with Kerry Ann Lee (Red Letter Distro) about collaboration, correspondence, and solidarity over time and distances. Spanning over two decades and three continents, the panel will discuss the responsive nature of zine-making, distribution, and archiving as a means of survival and creative resistance from the sidelines. Presented by Red Letter Distro.

    • 5–6:30pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Subject to Change: the Syllabus as Publication, with Collective Question
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      The syllabus is a utopian publication. It is asked for and given, and in this exchange it figures as a kind of contract, perhaps even a form of evidence, or a standard against which to measure progress. It directs, draws lines, outlines. It acts like a script, a score, notation, an aid to performance. It's revised each semester to pretend it did something that it didn't do, just in case someone checks, with a hope that this revised version will go the way you want the next time, so that what you thought could have been becomes real. It projects and aspires but is also fraudulent and knows it. This discussion with Collective Question (Chris Lee, Steven Chodoriwsky, and Julie Niemi) is based on their research into Tolstoy College, an anarchist educational community that was part of the University of Buffalo from 1969–1985. Presented by The Southland Institute (for critical, durational, and typographic post-studio practices).

    • 6:30–8pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts
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      Editors Christopher K. Ho and Daisy Nam will lead a conversation with contributors to Paper Monument's new anthology, Best! Letters from Asian Americans in the Arts. Chronicling everyday lives, dreams, rage, family histories, and cultural politics, the seventy three letters collected within ignite new ways of being and modes of creating at a moment of racial reckoning. The panelists will discuss Best!'s origins, how the project shifted throughout 2020, the intimacy and complexity of the epistolary form, and the urgency of moving beyond and exploding open the model-minority myth. Presented by Paper Monument.

    • 8–9pm EST – The Classroom ︎
      Transcendent Waves Sound Bath, with Lavender Suarez
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      Join sonic healer, meditation teacher, and artist Lavender Suarez for a sound bath, dedicated to the release of Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives. In this new publication, Suarez poses questions to the reader as well as offers scientific evidence and personal anecdotes, all to make the case for the importance of listening and the positive impact it can have on our creative lives. Presented by Anthology Editions.