Plus 30 Journal · Culture / Publishing
Athens in small editions
Artist books, photobooks and zines offer another way to meet the city, at the pace of a page.
A small book can carry an entire point of view. Its size asks you to move closer. The order of its images determines what you encounter first and what stays with you at the end. Paper, folding and binding take part in the narrative. Reading becomes an experience that also passes through your hands.
Athens Art Book Fair gives this scene a shared meeting place. Founded in 2019 by Margarita Athanasiou and Michalis Pichler, the independent, artist-run initiative connects artist publishing in Greece with related practices internationally.
Publishing as an artistic medium
The fair describes publishing as a medium in its own right, welcoming artists, designers, photographers and zinesters. Its stated interests include the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean. Athens appears within a network of exchanges, with a particular geographical position and its own routes to other places.
Within that wider environment, Void works with photobooks, design and education. Its Athens presence and international collaborations show how publishing can begin in one location and reach readers elsewhere. Each book gives that journey a different physical form. The photograph accompanying this article records another part of the city’s book culture; it is not a view of Void or the fair.
Our suggestion is to choose a publication that makes you pause over two or three pages. Notice how images meet, where a gap appears and when the pace changes. There is no need to collect a stack. A book you will open again can become a personal reminder of a place precisely because it does not reduce that place to an instantly recognisable view. It carries someone else’s attention and leaves room for your own.