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Cartonera: Latin American Cardboard Books
May 17, 2019 at 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm
Cartonera is a contemporary publishing phenomenon that lies at the intersection between cultural trend and social movement, artistic intervention and community project. Known in Latin America as editoriales cartoneras, they are often referred to as ‘cardboard publishers’, because one feature that unites the diverse publishing projects is the material from which they make their books: recycled cardboard. Many of these presses popped up in Argentina around the time of the 2001 economic crisis, as a result of economic hardship, but also as new social enterprises, creating cheap and accessible books from waste materials.
This free event offers participants the chance to find out more about this phenomenon, including a chance to see some of the Library’s own collection of cartoneras. A presentation by academic and researcher Dr Lucy Bell (University of Surrey) will be followed by a workshop where you will be able to try your hand at making your own cartonera.
image: courtesy of cartonerapublishing.com
The workshop is part of an action-research project on community engagement and the Latin American community in Southwark by the AHRC Open World Research Initiative project “Cross Language Dynamics: Reshaping Community” at the Institute of Modern Languages Research, University of London, in partnership with Southwark Council.