Podcast
Booklyn Calling
Hosted by Booklyn, Inc. · EN
Booklyn Calling amplifies diverse voices within the artists’ book field and explores artmaking as a tool for community engagement, education, and social justice work. Hosted by Monica Johnson & Marshall Weber of Booklyn, Inc., a nonprofit arts organization located in Brooklyn, NY. Theme music by Kaia Fischer and Stuart Gunter. Artwork by Mylo Mendez. Sound recording and editing are provided by Earbong & Radio Free Brooklyn, a community organization providing a freeform radio platform for the diverse cultures that comprise the borough of Brooklyn.
Booklyn Calling is made possible in part by funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the NY City Council.
10episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Ruth Lingen & More Booklyn History
Jun 2700:57:52Tap to summarizeMaster printer Ruth Lingen hops on the call to chat about the magic of collaboration, and why making an artists’ book can feel like stepping into a “strange country.” She dishes out some jolly tales from Booklyn’s early days and offers some sage advice for emerging book artists (spoiler: don’t go at it alone!).Links:Ruth's websiteRuth's InstagramRuth's catalogBooklyn's websiteBooklyn's InstagramAs a shop worker for the legendary New York printmaker Joe Wilfer and midwest bookmaster Walter Hamady, Ruth Lingen learned both her trade and the pleasure of collaborating with living artists. In the years since, she herself has become somewhat of a legend, collaborating with nearly 50 of the world's greatest artists—on prints (some for Pace editions, some on her own) and very special limited edition artist books. She has worked with Jim Dine, Robert Ryman, Mary Heilmann, Kiki Smith, Chuck Close and Claes Oldenberg, Bob Holman, Robert Creeley, Jessica Stockholder and Jeremy Sigler, Donald Traever, Al Held, and John Chamberlain, to name a few. Lingen's work can be found in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Getty, and the Brooklyn Museum, as well as in more than 20 libraries, from the New York Public Library to the Harvard University Library.
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Booklyn History with C. K. Wilde
Jun 1100:55:05Tap to summarizeEver wondered how Booklyn came to be? Artist and founding member C. K. Wilde joins us on a trip to the ‘90s to uncover our history. From the book mobile that started things off, to the librarians who helped us make our way, and how a misread exit sign became our name.Links:Christopher's websiteChristopher's catalogBooklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's InstagramChristopher Karl Wilde was born in 1972. Wilde was raised in Madison, Wisconsin, USA. At an early age his proclivities for art making were encouraged and enthusiastically supported. After going to The George School, a Quaker boarding school, he went on to study Philosophy and Art at the University of Wisconsin. In 1993 founded Artichoke Yink Press, an imprint for artists books; A.Y.P. has published over 125 titles to date with many artists and writers. Wilde moved to New York City to teach collage and book arts at The Pratt Institute, The Cooper Union, and The Center for the Book Arts. In 1998, Wilde co-founded The Booklyn Artists Alliance, in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York. Wilde is represented by Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles.
Transcribe →Gloribel Delgado Esquilín
Jun 18, 202401:09:45Tap to summarizePuerto Rican textile artist Gloribel Delgado Esquilín talks with Monica & Marshall about her work as a journalist, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, and how a found bag of cloth ignited a journey of sewing dolls and creating soft books. The three discuss the political nature of her work, and Gloribel shares the importance of making work that is vulnerable and physically soft (to offset hard topics), while also needing to feel free in her creation, as a reaction to living in a colonized space.Links:Gloribel's InstagramGloribel's catalogBooklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's InstagramGloribel Delgado Esquilín is a textile artist, craftswoman, teacher, and writer from San Juan, Puerto Rico. She worked for more than 20 years as a journalist, creating community newspapers, literary magazines, community radio programs, theater, and art. Her career took a surprising turn after finding some cloth bags on the city streets, inspiring her to create dolls with stories. From that meeting, she returned to her passion for sewing, creating over 400 dolls. In 2014, she moved to Lima, Peru, to expand her knowledge of textile art and joined the collective of textile artists, “La Hermandad de la Costura”. In 2018, she visited Paris, where she learned to create pieces in natural felt. In 2019, she returned to Peru and exhibited her first textile book “La Casa Inundada”.Delgado Esquilín's identity as an ecofeminist is a cornerstone of her work. She has trained as an agroecological promoter at the Puerto Rican farm school El Josco Bravo, and collaborated to spearhead the Project 4645 initiative, a poignant tribute to the memory of thousands of victims in Puerto Rico following the devastating Hurricane María. Currently, Delgado Esquilín is currently completing graduate studies in narration. She is working on her first book of chronicles and creates textile books with an anti-racist and decolonial vision of her days in Puerto Rico.
Transcribe →Josh MacPhee
Dec 11, 202300:54:07Tap to summarizeJosh MacPhee joins this episode of Booklyn Calling to discuss social movement culture as a third space outside of art and design with Booklyn curators Marshall Weber and Jan Descartes, and how art doesn't make change on its own. The three talk about collective expression and how imagery takes on meaning, and MacPhee teaches how to read protest and organizing symbols as a language. Links:Josh's InstagramJosh's CatalogJustseeds Artists’ CooperativeInterference ArchiveBooklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's InstagramJosh MacPhee is a designer, artist, and archivist. He is a founding member of both the Justseeds Artists Cooperative and Interference Archive, a public collection of cultural materials produced by social movements based in Brooklyn, NY. MacPhee is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Signs of Change: Social Movement Cultures 1960s to Now and Signal: A Journal of International Political Graphics and Culture. He has organized the Celebrate People’s History poster series since 1998 and has been designing book covers for many publishers for the past decade.
Transcribe →Shana Agid
Jul 20, 202300:59:46Tap to summarizeTeacher, artist, and activist Shana Agid joins Booklyn Calling for episode ten, answering questions from Monica and Booklyn curator Jan Descartes. They talk about the themes come up so often in her work, like privilege and absence, and Agid explains his way of trying to make sense of the world by coming back to the same core questions throughout his art.Links:Shana's WebsiteShana's CatalogGround RulesCall a Wrecking Ball to Make a WindowSnitchBooklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's InstagramShana Agid is an artist, designer, teacher, and organizer whose work focuses on relationships of power and difference in visual, social, and political cultures. Her books and prints combine image, text, and form to explore these through narratives of desire, landscape, and history. His work has been shown at The New York Center for Book Arts, the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, and other venues. His artist books are in the collections of the Walker Art Center, New York Public Library, and the Library of Congress, among others. She is an also a collaborative design researcher and practitioner working with organizations to create systems and infrastructures toward self-determination, and a long-time member of Critical Resistance. Shana is an Associate Professor at Parsons School of Design / The New School in New York City.
Transcribe →Fred Rinne
Jun 6, 202300:59:53Tap to summarizeMonica and Marshall go on a wild ride with Fred Rinne, as they’re pulled into his universe for an episode. Join in as they reminisce about his artist book beginnings, discuss the overlapping of art, music, and humor, share thoughts on Booklyn Zine Club, and have story time with some of Rinne’s books. Links:Fred Rinne's Website Fred Rinne's Catalog Booklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's Instagram
Transcribe →Mobile Print Power
Mar 22, 202300:58:51Tap to summarizeJosé and Jess from Mobile Print Power join Booklyn Calling to give insight into their newly released box set and talk about the collective. They tell us what it's like being a bilingual multi-generational collective that explores social and cultural situations in a public setting, and how they take inspiration from their community and turn it into graphic designs. Find out about the collaborative work they do with their community in Corona, Queens, and how they're getting back to it since Covid derailment.Mobile Print Powers 8 Principals:1. We engage our whole selves to the task at hand2. We value the skills, knowledge, and experiences of all people, regardless of age or formal education3. We honor all community traditions and respect all community voices4. We recognize that dignity has no nationality and we oppose racism5. We want equality across the gender spectrum and we oppose sexism6. We reject violent words and violent actions7. We value all forms of written and spoken language and other forms of communication8. We believe in the power of collaborative and collective workLinks:Mobile Print Power's websiteMobile Print Power's InstagramMobile Print Power's Catalog & Box SetBooklyn's WebsiteBooklyn's Instagram
Transcribe →Sofia Szamosi
Mar 9, 202300:59:20Tap to summarizeSofia Szamosi joins Marshall to talk about how creating zines can be a gateway to making painted books and graphic novels, and how the process is different for them all. They also do a retrospective on Szamosi’s work around social media, looking into the subjects of body image and ‘girlhood’ and discuss her desire to make personal books.Links:https://sofiaszamosi.net/https://www.instagram.com/sofiaszamosi/https://booklyn.org/artists/sofia-szamosi/
Transcribe →sTo Len
Nov 18, 202201:00:23Tap to summarizeBrooklyn-based artist and self-proclaimed "hydro-feminist", sTo Len, joins us to talk about his life so far as an artist, spanning his teenage years to today. From selling gas station zines and printmaking with dead fish to making collaborative artists' books with the Organik collective and his position as the first-ever NYC Department of Sanitation artist-in-residence. A super fun episode with a lot to be covered.***LinkssTo Len: https://www.stoishere.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stoishere/The Office of In Visibility (OOIV): https://www.officeofinvisibility.com/Public Artists in Residence (PAIR):https://www.nyc.gov/site/dcla/publicart/pair.page#:~:text=Public%20Artists%20in%20Residence%20(PAIR)%20is%20a%20municipal%20residency%20program,solutions%20to%20pressing%20civic%20challenges.Works on Water: https://www.worksonwater.org/***Booklyn linksWebsite: https://booklyn.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/
Transcribe →Art Build Workers
Aug 30, 202201:01:47Tap to summarizeJeanette Arellano and Joe Brusky from Art Build Workers (Milwaukee, WI) join in to talk about the fight for public education, how everyone in a community can show up to help, and how art can amplify the voice of unions and social justice organizing.The Art Build Workers (ABW) are a group of six artists, designers, photographers, and educators who are based in Milwaukee, WI. We work locally and travel around the country organizing multi-day art builds that help unions, organizations, and movements amplify their messages through visual art, media, and archiving. Our motto is that before the march and before the strike there is the art build. We primarily collaborate with the National Education Association (NEA) which is the largest union in the country with an estimated membership of over 2.7 million members. ABW designs graphics for the movement and also coordinates designs from a vast network of activist artists and designers from around the country that we know. We screenprint picket signs, paint parachutes and banners, and produce offset posters that change the way demonstrations look visually, while amplifying a movement's social media presence, and helping create a space for movements to build community and become stronger.***Art Build Workers - https://artbuildworkers.com/When we Fight we Win (Box Set Edition) - https://booklyn.org/catalog/when-we-fight-we-win-box-set/Community Building through Collective Art Activism - https://journals.librarypublishing.arizona.edu/jcrae/article/4794/galley/4762/view/What Can Art Do in the Perilous Present? https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/what-can-art-do-in-the-perilous-present/How Art Plus Activism Led to Teacher Pay Raises in New Mexico https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/how-art-plus-activism-led-teacher-pay-raises-new-mexico***Booklyn linksWebsite: https://booklyn.org/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/booklynart/
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