Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Visual Arts and Multiple Formats are teaming up with the Boston Center for the Arts’ Boston Art Book Fair for a co-produced Multiple Fairs Art Book Fair, happening March 20–22, 2025, at Boston University’s Fuller Building on the Charles River Campus.
Launched in 2022, Multiple Formats, organized by Christopher Sleboda, Associate Professor of Art, Graphic Design; Chair, BFA Graphic Design, and the BU Graphic Design MFA and BFA programs—serves as an inclusive forum for artist book publishing, fostering creative networks and community.
This year’s collaboration allows Boston Center for the Arts (BCA) and Boston University School of Visual Arts (SVA) to expand their shared mission of connecting art, books, and community— bringing together artists, designers, publishers, and art book enthusiasts to celebrate and explore the dynamic intersection of art and publishing.
“I’m thrilled that this year Multiple Formats is collaborating with the Boston Center for the Arts. I attended the Boston Art Book Fair as an exhibitor before my appointment at BU and I know first-hand what a phenomenal event it is—spotlighting local and regional artist book publishers while also attracting artists and designers from across the US and the world. The Boston Art Book Fair has been an incubator and supporter for artists and designers working with the form of bound volumes,” says Sleboda.
Randi Hopkins and Julia Szejnblum, organizers of the Boston Art Book Fair, say, “Boston Center for the Arts and the Boston Art Book Fair are pleased to partner with BU’s Multiple Formats to offer expanded public programming and new avenues of engagement to Boston’s art and book loving creative communities. Multiple Formats has been an exciting addition to our cultural landscape, and we look forward to joining forces to nurture and inspire bold use of the powerful expressive possibilities of print.”
Multiple Fairs Art Book Fair and Symposium are free and open to the public. It is sponsored in part by the Wagner Foundation.
Multiple Fairs Programming
Thursday, March 20, 2025
7:00–8:00 PM
Ruby J. Thelot Keynote | RSVP
Location: 808 Commonwealth Ave, 4th Floor, Room 411
Ruby Thelot is an artist, designer and cyberethnographer based in New York. An adjunct professor of Design and Media Theory at NYU, he’s also the founder of the award-winning creative research and design studio 13101401 inc. and the author of A Cyberarchaeology of Checkpoints (Irrelevant Press, 2024) and Stonemilker (Nueoi Press, 2022). His research and artwork— which has been shown and presented internationally (The Hague, Berlin, Ljubljana, Abuja, New York City, Montreal, Toronto)—focus on the interactions between humans and artificial intelligence, the metaverse, and the implications of being-on-line.
Friday, March 21, 2025
11:00 AM–2:00 PM
Risograph Workshop with Panayiotis (Pan) Terzis | RSVP
12:00–3:00 PM
Roman Capitals Calligraphy Workshop with Javier Viramontes | RSVP
1:00–2:00 PM
CMYK Printing on the Risograph: Color/Shift Demo with Travis Shaffer | RSVP
2:00–3:00 PM
Risograph Maintenance Workshop with Robert Baxter | RSVP
3:00–6:00 PM
Paper Engineering with Kelli Anderson | RSVP
3:00–6:00 PM
Creative Coding Workshop with Halim Lee | RSVP
3:00–6:00 PM
Risograph Workshop with Alex Luciano | RSVP
Saturday, March 22, 2025
Programming Curated by Boston Center for the Arts
No registration required, seating available on a first-come-first-serve basis
Location: Howard Thurman Center for Common Ground at Boston University
11:15 PM–12:00 PM
DS4SI Pop-up Sunday Social News
We often consume the news alone–reading a newspaper over breakfast, doomscrolling on our phones, or listening on the go. DS4SI’s “Sunday Social News” intervention asks, “What changes when we consume, critique, and even produce news together?” Join us as we prototype a new collective space and ritual for the news.
12:00–1:00 PM
Print Media as a Tool for Collective Solidarity, moderated by Jameson Johnson with DS4SI, Fortunately Magazine, and Unity Newspaper
This panel will bring together artists and collectives whose practices engage with print media as a tool for disseminating information, galvanizing action, and promoting solidarity. The conversation will examine how newsprint, pamphlets, magazines, and other print publishing initiatives can be a platform for organizing in the present while also creating an archive for the future. With artists Cierra Michele Peters and Mark Hernandez Motaghy, co-founders of Fortunately Magazine, artists Maggie Wong and Vin Caponigro, presenting Unity Newspaper, and Design for Social Interventions (DS4SI). Moderated by Jameson Johnson, Founder & Editor in Chief, Boston Art Review.
2:00–3:30 PM
Stitching together with Maggie Ruth Haaland
We do not consent to division. Instead, we dream into interdependent communities and know that we are stronger when we show up for each other. Join us for a stitch circle in the midst of the book fair–a time to slow down and hand stitch together, as we co-create a large fabric scroll representing our collective vision. The first half hour of the circle will be more structured and Maggie will offer gentle instruction on a few basic stitches to get us started. From there, participants will be given a fabric patch, needle and thread with which to create a block to keep or to weave into the larger scroll and folks can drop in to make their marks. The piece will be finished and sewn together after the event, and kept in a to-be-determined community space for display.
4:00–5:00 PM
Speculative Archives, moderated by Jackson Davidow with Caleb Cole, Ebony Gill from Boston Urban Archive, and Dell Marie Hamilton
This panel will look at archives and ephemera as they are used by artists and activists: how they are created, how they circulate, and how relationships between art and archives manifest in the world of print and art. We will look at how archives can work to challenge dominant narratives, and at the erasure of archives, and ask questions about who and what are included, and who and what are missing in these compilations. We will look at how artists and other creative practitioners unearth and share lost histories, examine the role of publication in making an archive or an artwork, and look at the role of print in this process.
About the Book Fair
11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Multiple Fairs Book Fair
808 Commonwealth Ave, 1st Floor
Join over 150 exhibitors to celebrate artist book publishing. This gathering of international creatives (artists, designers, students, and educators) focused on printed matter celebrates the intersection of art, design, and publishing. Speak directly with makers about their projects, pick up unique works, and learn about the broad expanse of artist publishing in the twenty-first century.
