Interview Reyhan Lál

Upcoming 13 December marks the second artist-run art book fair at the Rijksakademie, this time taking place under the name VIVA VIVA. Initiated and organised by alum Reyhan Lál (RA 22/24), the fair brings together art publishing practices, experimental formats, and collective ways of sharing work.

We spoke with Reyhan about what led her to initiate VIVA VIVA, how art book fairs function as spaces for gathering and exchange today, and why publishing remains a vital artistic practice within and beyond the Rijksakademie context.

My motivation goes back to my early years as an artist based in Tehran. I encountered my first art book fair in 2018, organised by Bon-Gah (the artist-run publisher based in Tehran, founded by Mahmoud Bakhshi). As an artist who considered myself to be somewhat on the margins, I found the motivation to publicly present my self-published work, despite having a very limited budget.

At that time, such events had become an alternative that emerged out of urgency and had the capacity to create a ground where artists could share their works, test ideas and collectively shape something beyond institutional constraints. A year later, Bon-Gah invited me to organise the second edition, and I went on to work on three editions between 2019 and 2021 in Tehran. These experiences shaped my understanding of publishing as a living, dynamic and resilient practice, and of the art book fair as a site for gathering, sharing and world-making.

Today, art book fairs do not merely provide an independent platform for publishing. They have become centres for discussion around creating and cultivating communities around publishing as an artistic activity. These communities, which can be seen as a global phenomenon, take the shape of agile, flexible and expansive networks. They function as meeting points for dispersed activities: periodic encounters in real time and space that people sometimes even travel for.

One could say that art book fairs now take on the function of a market, but not purely in an economic sense. Rather, they resemble the ancient agora, a place accessible to the public and a space for dialogue and exchange.

The question remains how far these events can move beyond their own demographic base and attract communities beyond affluent and middle-class audiences. Entry barriers are relatively low. Although these events often have unstable economies and, at best, participants may only break even, they still allow for the production, circulation and presentation of works made with limited resources, without requiring institutional backing. There are artists who, without working with galleries or participating in art markets, have taken part in numerous book fairs and have had their works and ideas published through these contexts.

These events are imagined as open, inclusive and diverse spaces in which participants are invited to present, develop and share what they believe is worth standing for. Both Breaking Even, last year's edition, and VIVA VIVA emerged from this approach. This fair relies on its participants to bring meaning into it. What is both reflective and possible to realise is an emphasis on diverse modes of publishing, ranging from experimental magazines to political texts, and from poetic gestures to activist materials.

Art book fairs construct their own global artistic circuits. Their role is, in a sense, contradictory. They oscillate between creating open spaces for critical debate on the one hand, and functioning within a neoliberal, event-driven culture on the other. At the same time, large art institutions and markets have increasingly incorporated book fair sections under their roofs, often as a form of intellectual justification, while museums welcome the visitors and energy these fairs attract.

The Rijksakademie is a place for research, experimentation and self-directed artistic paths. The book fair functions as an extension of this research into the public realm. It provides a space where residents can test how their work engages with wider social, political and aesthetic contexts.

Within this setting, publishing offers a legitimate and independent space within the artistic community. Books and other publishing forms, such as magazines, posters and tapes, are often less constrained by public visibility and market pressures than artworks. Despite the decline of public and private funding in recent years, which has significantly affected art publishing, artists continue to show strong interest in publishing and have found alternative routes for producing and distributing work on their own terms.

The value of the Rijksakademie art book fair lies in the position it creates for publishing today: a form of resistance against the increasingly commercialised landscape of contemporary art.

I hope visitors experience the fair as a dynamic field of mindsets, a place where we reflect not only on what we publish, but also on the structures we operate within, what we resist and the forms of being we seek to activate through our practice.

I hope we recognise that our contributions are interventions within larger structures. They reveal what is valued, what is contested, which futures feel urgent and what needs to be expressed now. I hope we believe that alternatives can be collectively built, even temporarily, and that these alternatives matter.

I hope VIVA VIVA becomes a collective anthem that carries presence and life.

I also hope the fair fosters a sense of openness, a reminder that cultural spaces should not be confined, closed or individualistic. We gather to reclaim diversity in its broadest sense, encompassing practices, voices, formats, rhythms and ways of being together.

Finally, I hope visitors understand that this fair, chaotic, playful and improvised, decides for itself. It is not predetermined.

The VIVA VIVA Art Book Fair takes place Saturday 13 December at the Rijksakademie from 11.00 until 20.00 hours. Find the list of participants and the full programme here. Admission is free, registration is not necessary.