Breaking even!

Join us on 14 December from 11.00 – 20.00 for 'Breaking even! Art Book Fair' at the Rijksakademie. For one day, the building will be filled with booths from more than 40 alumni, residents and special guests, showing and selling self-made publications, prints, posters, records, cassettes, and unexpected publication formats. The day includes a full programme of talks, performances, workshops and sound-based presentations. ⁣Come visit us, and support our artist community.⁣

Participants:

Ali Eslami, Archie Hyde, Avril Corroon, Benjamin Li, Bram Faber, Chathuri Nissansala, Chad Cordeiro, Cole Verhoeven, Dark Editions by Danielle van Ark, DIABP (Dutch Independent Art Book Publishers), Dirk Kome, Evi Vingerling, Erik Tlaseca / crater invertido, Errant Journal ft. Roots to Fruits, Framer Framed, Fransisca Angela (Terang), Hackers & Designers, Hannah Rose Whittle, Het Generiek (Bert Scholten & Michiel Klein), it is part of an ensemble, Jeremiah Day, Josje Peters, Kagul, Lili Huston-Herterich, Learning Palestine, lisa barnard, Marijn van Kreij, Marika Asatiani, Marjo Postma, Meeting in the blue fold, Miklos Gaál, Nestor Siré, Oorbeek, PrintRoom, Raymond Cuijpers, Reading Sideways Press, Reading Vigil for Palestine, Reyhan Lál, Rijksakademie Social Practice, Ro Buur, Rooms of Now books (Maurice van Es), Self Publishers United, Set Margins', Serge Onnen, Silke Silkeborg, Silvia Gatti, Sookoon Ang and Vincent Olinet, Taylor Le Melle, Terang (Fransisca Angela), Ton Martens, Ursula Meltzer, Ute Janssen, Varia, Weaving Realities (Aldo Esparza Ramos), Zeynep Kayan and more.

Natalia Kerbage and Daphne Verweij, are our invited food caterers. Come and try the delicious meals, snacks, and desserts prepared by them! A percentage of the lunch sales will go to Riwaq Beirut to support food provision for displaced people in Lebanon.

‘Breaking even’ is an expression that refers to a financial result where there is neither profit nor loss. It not only points out the economic reality many independent publishers face, where covering costs without profit is often considered a success, but also speaks to the delicate balance that fairs must navigate between resisting commercial pressures and finding ways to be economically sustainable. What modes of being and subjectivities do art book fairs enable, and what kind of futures do they make possible (or impossible)? Participants share their publishing practices and collectively reflect on this context’s potential by meeting, creating, and sharing curiosity.

'Breaking even!' is an initiative of artist and Rijksakademie alumna Reyhan Lál in collaboration with the Rijksakademie residents, alumni, team and special guests. ⁣

→ 11.00 –11.10
Printlab
opening words by Breaking even! organisers

→ 11.30 –11.50
Print lab
Jeremiah Day / performance 

Response-Abilities
Famous scene from movie: "You want the truth?! You can't handle the truth!" Handle: get a handle on things; handled delicately; kid got handles. You can move the thing but with control, distance. Is this part of response-ability?  Can we handle our response-abilities?  Like: if our leaders ignore (break) laws then are we forced too, or merely "led into temptation"? In the movie, the guy talking was commander of the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

→ 12.30 –12.50
Reading Room
Raymond Cuijpers, Cole Verhoeven and Ginio Elstak / talk

Raymond Cuijpers, Cole Verhoeven, and Ginio Elstak will do a short talk about self-publishing, what the practical issues are (how to reproduce an artwork in print, text editing, translation, design issues, printing matters, presentation and distribution)  and why they think it is necessary to publish independently. 

→ 12.30 –12.50
Print lab
Ute Janssen / performance lecture

In her performative presentation, the artist presents two self-publishing projects, including the ‘Amsterdam Apartment City Project’, which she realised during her time as a resident artist at the Rijksakademie from 1988-1990. With her project art share (A.A.P.88) at a price of 25 guilders/DM (today ‘Sold Out’), she financed the temporary, habitable action space in the centre of Amsterdam, which was deliberately located in a social housing complex. The aim was to be close to the structural changes in the city and to offer a meeting place for experimental, scientific, philosophical, artistic and socio-political ideas and work.

The second example is a self-produced and staged art film project entitled ‘Canti di Casa D. Numero 1’ (2022-2024, part 1 of 3), which deals audiovisually with the bizarre architecture of the last dream house of the British poet Edward James (1907-1984) and creates a synthesis of real and filmed architecture based on previous cultural research. In order to promote the continuation of the film project through public participation, the artist has published a brochure and postcards.

→ 13.00–13.20
Reading Room
Miklos Gaál / portfolio presentation

"Portfolio presentation about my interest in using the format of a book in storytelling. For me, it involves intimate quality and possibilities of non-linear narration – I am currently writing an essay collection for a PhD in fine arts, and the book has proven a good medium to tackle the same interests that I do in my academic text but in a performative and aesthetic way."

→ 13.30–13.50
Reading Room
Silke Silkeborg / reading  

Silke Silkeborg writes texts about her artistic research projects. Recently, she has been researching exiled writers who had to flee Germany during the Nazi era. In the south of France, she discovered traces of these writers who sought a new home there.
Silkeborg will read her text 'Painting at night in front of the Hôtel de la Tour in Sanary-sur-Mer'. This hotel served Klaus Mann as a new place of refuge after his escape from Amsterdam in 1937.

→ 14.00–14.20
Print lab
Learning Palestine / pamphlet workshop

The Learning Palestine pamphlets are a collection of online essays that are essential readings for a comprehensive understanding of the Palestinian struggle. Authored by diverse writers from various backgrounds, these essays span different periods and cover various topics. We will show how pamphlet distribution can be done using simple designs and production tactics.

→ 14.30–14.50
Print lab
Meeting in the Blue Fold / performative reading

A (performative) reading by Anastasija Pandilovska about the multifarious materiality of Derek Jarman’s 'Blue' and how it integrated bookmaking and publishing practices into the work of art.
Created in Jarman’s final years, ‘Blue’ is a multifaceted work of art that rejects the traditional narrative structure and modes of representation. For over thirty years now, a single shot of saturated blue for 79 minutes, shot on 35mm, has transformed the ambiances of cinemas and renowned and small art institutions, far and near. 'Blue' is often described as a film without image, a film without materiality. But precisely its various material manifestations and its proposal for decentralization of the work of art shapes 'Blue' into “a fragment of an immense work without limit. The blue of the landscape of liberty.”

→ 15.00– 15.40
Reading Room
Chathuri Nissansala, Kagul / workshop

A small stitching session will take place, based on Kagul team’s documentation of cosmic textile patterns recorded in Sri Lanka's ritualistic textile making process. 

→ 15.30–15.50
Print lab
Rooms of Now books (Maurice van Es) / talk 

→ 16.00–16.40
Print lab
Hackers and Designers / reading and workshop

The talk will be partially an introduction to H&D experimental open-source publishing practice, and partially a live activation of one of a publishing tool, ChattyPub. ChattyPub is a publishing tool that uses a chat interface (Zulip) for writing, editing and applying CSS styles. With ChattyPub, H&D explores how a collective and simultaneous publishing process can unfold, that is, when multiple people work simultaneously via a chat interface. Through this demo, H&D will showcase an unconventional way of creating publications, experimenting with ChattyPub's possibilities and limitations.  

→ 16.30–
Reading Room
Taylor Le Melle / performative reading

Going to read. Read what? Bits. Bits of What? Text. What Text? The Text I'm going to read! Taylor will read excerpts from a fiction project in progress, code named ‘Text exercise 1’, research for which was presented in the Reading Room during Rijksakademie Open 2024. The book is a speculative, polyphonic novel in fragments voiced by 38 archetypal characters, some (legally) human and some not.

→ 17.00–17.40
Print lab
Reading Sideways Press (Nuraini Juliastuti), Crater Invertido (Erik Tlaseca) and Chad Cordeiro / talk

→ 18.00–18.20
Hall West
Reading Sideways Press / podcast session

Launch of 'Everyday Runners', a podcast series about the feelings, things, practices and methods of running. In the series, Andy Fuller (co-founder of Reading Sideways Press) interviews experts and everyday runners about how they engage with and practice running. The podcast has 36 episodes at the moment, and keeps on growing. As we seek different areas to theorise from our practices, listening and conversation have evolved to become the sites for sharpening our sensibilities to our surroundings. Part of our attempts to develop such sensibilities is to produce 'Walking Our Thoughts' podcast series. 
Apart from running a booth to showcase our publications, we will organise a live interview at the Rijksakademie. In doing so, we are hoping to maximise the growing network of independent radio stations within our sonic ecosystem e.g. Stranded FM, Lumbung.Radio, Radio KUNCI, Tropiezo, and Radio Alhara.

→ 18.30–19.00
Hall West
lisa barnard / live music performance 
DiAMETR

→ 19.00–19.40
Hall West
Oorbeek (Serge Onnen, Peter Cleutjens) feat. Peter Bogers / concert

We will close ‘Breaking even!’ with a presentation by the electro-acoustic improvisation collective 'Oorbeek', featuring guest artist Peter Bogers.