MISS READ 2022

Friday, April 29, 5–9 pm 
Saturday, April 30, 12–7pm 
Sunday, May 1, 12–7pm

MISS READ: The Berlin Art Book Festival 2022 will be taking place from April 29 to May 1 at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin. It will host more than 300 exhibitors and international guests to discuss and celebrate the art of making books. Throughout the weekend, a wide selection of publishers, art periodicals, artists and authors will be featured. The annual Conceptual Poetics Day will be held on Saturday to explore the imaginary border between visual art and literature. Admission to the fair and to the program is free.

A full list of exhibitors at Miss Read 2022 can be found here.

With this year’s focus on publishing practices from the Souths, especially Africa and the African diaspora, MISS READ aims to broaden the spectrum of what publishing represents in different cultures. The program will host among others the makers of magazines Afrikadaa, Mosaïques and Clijec from Cameroon, Chimurenga from South Africa, publishers and magazines of the diaspora such as Éditions Mabiki from Belgium and O Menelick 2 Ato from Brazil, as well as afrobrasilian artist Renata Felinto, Pascale Obolo, founder of the African Art Book Fair, Mario Pissarra, director of the Africa South Art Initiative, and many more.

Additionally, the publication Decolonizing Art Book Fairs—Publishing Practices from the South(s) was published last year in collaboration with Pascale Obolo, Parfait Tabapsi, the editor of the Cameroonian cultural magazine Mosaïques, and the artist and publisher Nkule Mabaso. The volume attempts to enrich the discourse on publishing and of art book fairs, with an emphasis on practitioners and initiatives from the African continent and diaspora. 

Program
On Friday, April 29, MISS READ STAGE will host the panel talk Publishing as a Space for Resistance with founder and director of the African Art Book Fair Pascale Obolo, founder and editor of Mosaïques Parfait Tabapsi, as well as Nabor Jr from the Afro-Brasilian magazine O Menelick 2 Ato. It is followed by a performance to discuss writing and views of the world by artist Renata Felinto.

On Saturday, April 30, the 10th Conceptual Poetics Day will explore the imaginary border between visual art and literature. The program will feature a talk by conceptual poet and scholar Craig Dworkin who investigates the pliability of paper and the degree to which the material substrate of Stéphane Mallarmé’s Un coup de Dés, a discussion moderated by literary scholar Annette Gilbert who raises the question: What is a literary work?, and a performative lecture and listening session with artist Nontsikelelo Mutiti. Jeaninne and John A. Kantara will present May Ayim. Radikale Dichterin, sanfte Rebellin and read from Ayim´s poems.

On Sunday, June 1, the MISS READ STAGE will hold lectures and panel discussions including Corina Reynolds, director of the Center for Book Arts, to talk about he state of artist book criticism, Nadine Siegert director of Goethe Institute Nigeria and Parfait Tabapsi will host a panel about circulation and distribution, as well as book launch of Accumulation: The Art, Architecture, and Media of Climate Change e-flux architecture with Nikolaus Hirsch, Daniel A. Barber, Nick Axel and others.

Miss Read 2022 will also host a radio station in collaboration with RebootFM. During the festival there will be a vivid program with interviews, features, dj sets but also recordings from the stages streamed and broadcasted via 88.4MH. The schedule can be found here.

This years’ focus features a collection of publishers, authors and artists from Africa and the African Diaspora like Bakwa Books (Yaoundé), Jalada (Nairobi), Huza Press (Kigali), Tendai Rinos Mwanaka (Chitungwiza), Renata Felinto (Crato, Brazil), Pascale Obolo (Paris) and Parfait Tabapsi (Yaoundé) among others and introduces the audience into their publishing practice with lectures and talks during the three days program. 

The poster of MISS READ 2022 was created by Jay Ramier. The poster of Conceptual Poetics Day 2022 was created by Nontsikelelo Mutiti. 

Founded in 2009, MISS READ is Europe’s leading art book festival dedicated to building a community and creating a public meeting place for discourse around artists’ books, conceptual publications and publishing as artistic practice. MISS READ is artist-run. Organized by Yaiza Camps, Moritz Grünke, Pascale Obolo, Michalis Pichler, Parfait Tabapsi.

MISS READ and Conceptual Poetics Day 2022 are funded by Hauptstadtkulturfonds.

Press contact: presse@missread.com