3/23/2025
One of the things I grew distant from over the past few years is print publishing as a creative practice, a mode of circulating information, a conversation, a relationship, and (as cliche as it sounds) a passion. You could say that sharing things on social media can also constitute these things, but it's different — materially and relationally, both of which lead to the question of ownernship and control. Who controls the publishing infrastructure, the means of circulation, the terms of conversation?
The other day I sat in on a panel at The New School's Spitting Image Art Book Fair on "Ecologies of Study: Publishing as an Act of Gathering." kimi malka hanauer of Press Press and Rachel Valinsky of Wendy's Subway spoke about publishing in terms of holding space for reading. They talked about physical space as in reading rooms with physical publications and furniture designed for reading experiences. But they also talked about the metaphorical space that opens up between the reader(s) and the object-text(s). The Free Black Women's Library (I believe founder OlaRonke Akinmowo was in the audience, speaking about it) constitutes a space of readers and book traders that is woven across the physical neighborhoods through which it travels.
Over the years, L and I have talked about starting a space near where we live &mdash maybe an infoshop, coffee shop, and co-creating and co-learning space. There are spaces around the IE that serve these functions, from Birdcage Comics Cafe and the Garcia Center for the Arts in San Bernardino to Cafe con Libros in Pomona, but I think I would want ours to be based on cooperative membership and to be home to cooperative and collective projects. I don't know how we would realistically make this happen and sustain it, but it's nice to feel inspired again.