What: Interrobang at Book Arts Collaborative
Where: The Madjax Building in downtown Muncie
When: 7 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday
The event is free and open to the public.
Find the full schedule and more information here.
Printmakers, book artists and community members will have the chance to mingle and meet this weekend at Interrobang, a two-day event hosted by the Book Arts Collaborative and Tribune Showprint in downtown Muncie. The event includes presentations from visiting professionals, a marketplace and the launch party for the Book Arts Collaborative Press artist's book, “Spaces Between Places.”
Interrobang starts at 7 p.m. Friday with a presentation from Erin Beckloff and Andrew Quinn, co-directors of the documentary “Pressing On.” The two will be talking about their film, which focuses on the printing industry. Quinn is a Ball State telecommunications alumnus and co-owner of Bayonet Media, the film's production company.
At 7:50 p.m., a presentation from Karl Ahlrichs will take place. Ahlrichs is the photographer who won the Book Arts Collaborative’s artist's book contest.
The photography and haikus featured in “Spaces between Places” is centered around Ahlrichs’ time spent in transit during business trips. The photography focuses on capturing the act of traveling, rather than the destination one travels to.
Rai Peterson, the project director at Book Arts Collaborative, said Ahlrichs’ photography stood out to the press because of its strong and complicated message about travel.
“We’ve made travel convenient and comfortable, but it’s still a lonely and alienating experience,” she said. “The book reminds us that our time is not our own.”
Sixty copies of the book were hand-printed by the class. Peterson said each book took about 20 hours to produce and passed through 22 different individual hands.
In addition to students in the Book Arts immersive learning course, community members have helped out with the book too. Gretchen Larsen is a graphic designer who recently moved to Muncie with her husband. She has been volunteering in the shop to help put the book together.
“It allows me to engage with design in a different way,” she said. “It’s a different way to get in touch with graphic design that is still really cool and exciting.”
On Saturday, events span from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. with a lunch break. The morning lineup includes presentations by Karen Vincent on the history of glassmaking and a talk from Celene Aubry, a letterpress artist from Hatch Show Print. While lunch is not provided, guests are encouraged to stay in the downtown area during the lunch break and support local restaurants.
In the afternoon, there will be sessions with Kathryn and Howard Clark of Twinrocker Paper, and Scott Moore, founder of Moore Wood Type. Moore creates both replacement and original wood type, and will be giving out an original wood type piece to an attendee.
The final event of the day is a shop takeover, where a select group of printing professionals will take a quick tour of the shop and then make something. Peterson said it is a format similar to a timed cooking competition, but with printing instead of cooking as the art form. Attendees will be able to crowd into the shop to watch.
Peterson said as the shop comes up on its one-year anniversary, she wanted to give the public an opportunity to learn more about Book Arts.
“Even if you think you’re not interested, come out and see if you are,” Peterson said. “Come to learn more about printing.”
The event takes its name from the “Interrobang” print symbol, which combines a question mark and an exclamation point.