Books, posters, zines and more lit up the first floor of the Howard Thurman Center Saturday afternoon.
In a collaboration between Boston University’s School of Visual Arts and the Boston Center for the Arts, the Multiple Formats Art Book Fair and Symposium was brought to life with more than 150 exhibitors.
Multiple Formats, a fair spearheaded by BU Associate Professor of Art Christopher Sleboda, is an arts and book fair dedicated to highlighting the collaboration between artists, publishers, students and the public. With the fair entering its fourth year, Sleboda said one of the fair’s main appeals is its ability to bring people together.
“It’s a great place for community, a lot of people sharing a variety of ideas whether they’re conceptual or formal,” Sleboda said. “Depending on whatever you like, there’s going to be something you’re going to find that really hits your sweet spot.”
After the Boston Art Book Fair lost its usual event space in the fall, Sleboda saw an opportunity to reach out to the same audience by creating one collective event.
“We reach out to a lot of the same audience. We don’t want to compete against one another … so I just said, ‘Do you guys just want to join forces and do it here at Boston University,’” Sleboda said.
The vendors for this year’s fair ranged from local graphic design student organizations to publishing houses and presses. Of the distributors and attendees present, many were either current BU MFA students studying graphic design or MFA alumni returning to BU for Multiple Formats.
“I like to come back and see some of my fellow classmates and professors, and just kind of see the design scene and art scene around Boston,” said Kristen Davis, a graduate of last year’s class of BU graphic design MFA students, who returned as an attendee.
In addition to the main event Saturday, the Multiple Formats Fair also consisted of several keynote speakers who gave lectures and led workshops on Thursday and Friday. In the Event Space room of the Howard Thurman Center, tables were brought out for sewing workshops and panelists held discussions about archival work in between vendors’ tables.
Khanh Nguyen, an artist for Vănguard Magazine, brought self-made ceramic works to the fair, and Kurt Boone, a photographer based in New York, brought in his own photography books.
“I’ve been making books on my own [for] about 30 years, and I’m here for the Multiple Formats Art Book Fair for the third time,” Boone said. “I get a chance to talk to a lot of young people about my practice, so that’s what I really like.”
As BU’s School of Visual Arts enters into a collaborative leadership position in the Multiple Formats Art Book Fair and Symposium, the fair will inevitably change and be reinvented.
This year, the Boston Center for the Arts provided the scheduled speakers and lecturers for the entire third day of the fair, which had never been done before. Moving forward, the structure of the fair may continue to change.
“Some people are interested in [the Fair] being more days,” Sleboda said. “So we’ll see what happens in the future because the spirit of Multiple Formats is that it evolves.”
The diversity of both the mediums of art presented and the cultural diversity of the artists were both cited as highlights from attendees of the fair. Looking around at all the tables and the walls of the room, fairgoers were able to spectate art inspired by a wide variety of cultural influences.
“I love how international the fair is and how many of these artists and creatives have incorporated different cultures and different stories into their work,” said Kimia Tabatabaei, a consultant and photographer living in New York who attended the fair. “It’s just a beautiful day to celebrate our very multicultural world.”
