Book Arts Unbound: Collecting and Curating Contemporary Artists' Books

Presentation by Amy Halliday, Gallery Director of the Hampshire College Art Gallery. 

The book as an art object has always been a dynamic medium: contemporary artists continue to challenge conventions as they seek to give form to personal inquiry and pressing political issues. This talk will explore several examples drawn from the Hampshire College collection and recent Gallery exhibitions, including Candace Hicks’ hand-embroidered Common Threads series, Charles Theonia’s Saw Palmettos, which explores trans poetics in a series of hormone bottles, and a 70-foot participatory scroll by the collective AgitArte, unravelling the history of colonialism and resistance in Puerto Rico.