Bookmobile Project sheds new light

Monday and Tuesday of this week you may have been surprised to see a vintage 1959 Air-stream trailer parked in front of Blackbridge Hall.

If you didn’t look to see what was inside, you missed an opportunity to see books, art and publishing in a whole new light.

Project Mobilivre-Bookmobile is a traveling collection of 300 artist books, zines and independent publications. Bookmobile Collective coordinates the tour.

The 12 member, entirely volunteer-run collective is based in Montreal, Canada and Philadelphia.

The Bookmobile opened to the public at 10 a.m. Monday and Tuesday morning and remained open for viewing till 7 p.m. each evening.

On Monday at 4:10, Andy Cornell, Mary Tremonte and Onya Finley, the three members of the Bookmobile Collective traveling with the collection, talked about the project’s mission, reach, content and some challenges they have faced.

Project Mobilivre-Bookmobile’s goal is to promote non-corporate media. One aspect they want to strengthen is the networks of people making book art.

The Project Mobilivre-Bookmobile staff said they felt strongly about bringing independent art to seniors, prisoners, school children and others who are beyond the reaches of regular art circles. Bringing different art
mediums together is a high priority as well.

The founding premise of the project is the importance of encouraging people to try options besides large-scale corporate sponsored media.

“The Bookmobile Project debuted in 2001. It was so successful that they are touring again this year,” said Finley. “Touring is the easiest and most fun part.”

They enjoyed the experience to of going on tour as a small band. They generally allow a day’s driving distance between venues.

Since part of their mission is to reach those not usually reached by art, they have made some unusual stops. In Minneapolis, the Bookmobile went to a drop-in center for homeless teens. They stopped at a senior center in Orleans, Ontario. A high school in Ottawa was another stop on the tour.

Some hosting parties have been more receptive to the aims of Project Mobilivre-Bookmobile Project than others. Cornell, Tremonte and Finley received a warm welcome at the high school and the drop-in center. Residents at the senior center did not respond as well as hoped. Cornell joked that the ladies were more interested in having their picture taken than binding their own books.

The main components of the Bookmobile are zines. Zines are independently produced, small run, highly personal publications. Zines are often photocopied, cut-and-paste, collage, one-person art affairs.
The term ‘zine’ originated in the science fiction fanzines of the 1950s. Zines were once again brought to life in the seventies with the advent of punk.

Most recently the personal zines, chronicling one person’s point of view are in vogue. Many of these zines focus on politics or feminist viewpoints. Others focus on the writer or editors personal obsessions. Artist book is a term that was coined in the 60′s to describe books made to serve as art object in an of themselves. The word was taken from the Dada movement.

The Bookmobile also incorporates hand-bound artist books, which are also highly personal, D. I. Y. productions.

During the artist talk viewers had a chance to see both artist books and zines. Many of these were beautiful to look at and some were intricately constructed.

A wide variety of topics were represented. An Anarchist zine produced by two college students in Florida showed the quality of work possible on an extremely limited budget. East Village Inky, a zine created by a mother in New York City exemplified the personality and humor evoked by many zines.

One of the artist books was so pretty and so complicated I was afraid to open it to reveal the full work. Another of the artist books was made of matchbooks. All the works passed around at the discussion were totally
unique.

The greatest challenge the collective faces is having is the lack of funding.

As D. I. Y. activists, corporate sponsorship is not an option they allow themselves to take advantage of. The members are forced to be self-taught fundraisers and grant writers. The collective is applying to be a recognized nonprofit organization in Canada.

The Canada Council for Arts, a government agency similar to the United States’ NEA provides a living for the majority of Canadian artists. In the US Project Mobilivre-Bookmobile relies mainly on individual donations.

If you would like more information on the collective or Project Mobilivre-Bookmobile, go to www.mobilivre.org.

The Bookmobile’s next stop is in Durham, N.C.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 20 2002. Filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry