Vernacular Institute

Staging projects with a performative approach and in playful settings, the Vernacular Institute engages with the Curatorial and the Editorial through alternative forms of open discourse.

Founded in 2014, the Vernàcular Institute follows on from Publish and be Damned, a peripatetic project focused on art publication and an independent art book fair since 2004. In the initial stage, Vernãcular Institute co-founded Index Art Book Fair (Mexico) in partnership with Casa Bosques and Pa/per View. Based in Taipei from 2015-2017, it collaborated with AAA (Asia Art Archive) initiating The Editorial as part of Taipei Biennial 2016, and launched a series of One Day Bookshop in TCAC (Taipei Contemporary Art Center). Having relocated to Mexico City, Vernâcular Institute currently runs Vernácular Art Book Fair and Black Language Book Club with a focus on contemporary independent publishing and editorial experiments, and an international residency programme to develop bilateral cultural exchange with the aim of building a long-term dialogue between artists and curators in Latin America and Asia. Vernäcular Institute is run by independent curator Jo Ying Peng.