Program

Warming up to the main event!

Annee Grøtte Viken will read an extract from a chapter called The Bath and (the hot and never tepid) Privacylover from her recent book The Domestic Encyclopaedia. The Domestic Encyclopaedia is a collection of stories that explore the material body of architecture, of houses. In the midst of ongoing ecological disaster and increased alienation from nature it invites you to travel beyond the screen, to practice attention and probe the nature of domestic space. Grøtte Viken will read to a soundscape produced in collaboration with composer and musician Marthe Belsvik Stavrum. 

Watch the bathroom merge with mountain streams, kitchens sizzle on sandy beaches and a bedroom drift into a nocturnal choreography. Let them seep underneath your door. Welcome home. 

Carol Stampone is a Brazilian writer and artist based in Bergen. 

Fragile Certainties is auto-theory, or an attempt to practice escrevivência. That is, a type of auto-theory that also serves as a methodology for survival and resistance. Conceptualized by the Afro-Brazilian poet and novelist Conceição Evaristo, escrevivência  is an invitation for women of color to write themselves, instead of allowing the so-called universal subject to define them. 

Samuel will launch his new publication Scores for Laughing, co-published by Pamflett and Vibrational Semantics Press, with a performance from his Gargoyles series. Recently, Samuel has been researching the social dynamics of laughter within human relationships, with a particular interest in how laughter is performed within patriarchal structures and masculine relationships. The new publication gathers visual performance scores for laughing, and in the Gargoyles series, Samuel performs various masculine-aligned archetypes.

Edvine Larssen will read a commissioned text by Line Ulekleiv, "Take good heed of time", from her Artist´s book  -  A Wet Trace draws a New Coastline (Curtain VI),  published in collaboration with SMØR Press in 2025. 

A packed day of programming in various locations: KMD, Den Uferdige Institusjonen and Landmark. Open and free for everyone

Get an introduction to the art book collection! The UBBKD library is collecting artists' books and zines from local, national and international artists.

In november 2025, Pamflett (Bergen, Norway) and Hand Saw Press (Tokyo) launched the artists’ book The woods we live in, by Norwegian artist Aurora Solberg.
The woods we live in is a truly beautiful book, featuring Aurora's original watercolour paintings printed using the risograph technique.

This talk will introduce the work of Sam Kim and his practice at the intersection of graphic design, independent publishing, and collective platforms. Drawing on his experience in Berlin with Common Imprint, his collaboration with Graphic Magazine, and the recent launch of the BookBooK Festival, Sam will explore how editorial projects can create spaces of encounter, research, and circulation for the Asian independent scene.

The Renaissance of Printed Zines is a research project by Michał Chojecki (Oficyna Peryferie) exploring the return of zines in the contemporary publishing landscape. Focusing on post-digital print practices, the project asks why handmade, low-cost, and self-organized publications matter again today. At Bergen Art Book Fair, the author will present the second edition of the zine, expanded with an appendix featuring 20 contributions by artists, publishers, and printers invited to respond to the project.

Join us for a nice workshop where we will make zines and friendships!

Workshop is free, more info with sign-up coming soon!

"the unfinished press" is an art book publisher run by Matias Grøttum and Sveinung Rudjord Unneland. They print and publish small pamphlets with artistic, dialogue based content in collaboration with different agents. They are based inside the locales of "the unfinished institution" at Laksevåg, Bergen.

Matias Grøttum presents the publishing house Den uferdige presse and launches KITCHEN CONVERSATIONS 3: THOMAS KILPPER and KITCHEN CONVERSATIONS 4: Maria Hlavajova.

Utu Press is a small publishing imprint founded in Helsinki in 2020 that specializes in contemporary photography. From the very beginning, the idea behind the publishing project has been to operate at the intersection of zine and photobook cultures. 

Toivo Heinimäki, founder of Utu Press, briefly introduces the imprint's recent publications and the philosophy guiding their content and design — with a closer look at the making of two books: Kaisa Syrjänen's Gaze Studies (2026) and Juliana Irene Smith's Good Feelings Every Day (2025).

Everyone is welcome to hang out and eat with us at DUI, before we head over to the city centre and Opening Ceremony at Landmark.

As Kuš! turned 18 last summer, we thought it was time to explore some adult content with the release of the comics anthology š! #58 '18+'. "Comics are not just for kids anymore," we've heard. Giving artists the space to create comics without censorship, we've received some rather explicit content. But it's so much more than that. Being an adult has many more facets, as you'll be able to explore in this book.

Half-light: Notes on Violence from the Trans Underworld" emerges in the wake of rising social and political violence against trans communities. When trans life becomes a form of death-in-waiting, what can we learn from making kin in the underworld? Poisoned wetlands, violent landscapes, and trans ancestors gather in the essays; marked by their ongoing proximity to harm, their perspectives offer queer communities urgent strategies of resistance through opacity, disorientation, and national reckoning. Half-light is an outcome from a two year long performance and image-making project through the Centre for Near Life Research.

"Forms of Migration vol. 2: Art and Literature from Arab Im/migrant Contexts" collects a diversity of Arab perspectives in Im/migrant art, literature, music, architecture, cinema, and other forms of expression. The presentation introduces the concept of the series based on the first volume, published in 2022, followed by a reading of an excerpt from an essay for the forthcoming volume 2. The essay, entitled "Hasan's Story: How Migration Really Doesn't Work," recounts the story of a Yemeni father of four children trying to escape his war-torn country. At the same time, it is the story of an unlikely friendship that spans continents, languages, and cultural differences.

Girjegumpi

The Sámi Architecture Library

Joar Nango

The book originates from the Festival Exhibition 2020 and includes texts—both in English and Sámi—by Mathias Danbolt, Candice Hopkins, Tone Huse, Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Sofia Singler, Sigbjørn Skåden, and Axel Wieder.

In addition, the publication is richly illustrated with images from the exhibition itself at Bergen Kunsthall, as well as from the preparatory process and from various related projects that Nango has worked on. With deep practical and material knowledge, tradition-rooted craftsmanship, aesthetic conviction, and a touch of humor, the artist and architect Nango succeeds in bringing together the past and present of his Sámi culture in installations and individual works that speak to both their surroundings and the audience in an unpretentious and direct manner.

As fascism continues to run rampant in the US under Trump and ICE is kidnapping people off the streets without any due process, we must turn our attention to how the act of dissent is being labeled domestic terrorism and how zines fit into the equation.

An introduction to Taipei Art Book Fair, who celebrated 10 years in 2026.

The fair is officially open at Bergen Kunsthall! During the fair you can meet 100+ artists, join a workshop and see various small exhibitions. After fair hours you can join a podcast recording at Tekstallmenningen, see exhibition of taiwanese art book artists at Northing space and hang out at Lydgalleriet with a few more book launches!

In 2023–24 Halden Bookworks hosted 12 artist residents: 6 from India (The Irregular Times) , and 6 from the United States (Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective). During their residency, one artist from each country was paired up to share studio space over a 2-week period. 

The work produced from this AIR program at Halden Bookworks ranged from letterpress-printed books and broadsides, handmade paper with inclusions, pulp paintings, cyanotypes, papercuts and photo books, hand-printed and -painted experiments with type, collage, zines and more.

Participating artists: Renuka Rajiv, Colette Gaiter, Vasudhaa Narayanan, Tia Blassingame, Tarini Sethi, Keerthana Ramesh, Devin Fitzgerald, Zeenat Kuvaloor, Amogh Bhatnagar, Myron M. Beasley and Jerushia Graham.

BAV1 students at KMD present poster works in which text is used as the primary visual device. Through expressive typography, the works investigate how meaning can be amplified, challenged, or visualized when text is taken outside the confines of the book format.

During BABF 2026 we welcome you to join the Poster JOY workshop. — What is Poster JOY?! A queer artist culture network for Norway/Sápmi (established in 2025) that works with analog poster production and distribution. However, the project do not have national limitations: It is nomadic and can appear at festivals, exhibition venues and far away in the forest if necessary — such as this one.

Poster JOY is a platform that brings together queer, trans, and non-binary people. Allies are very welcome! What else to expect? Explore the magic portable printhouse of Poster JOY, and meet other beautiful beings. No pre-skills required. This particular pop-up will allow time to explore the tools of the printhouse during several hours, make your own printed gems, and share them with the world after.

How to frame a book? How can you display your newly purchased artists' book without just stuffing it inbetween other books in the shelf? An exhibition of 'book frames' prototypes made by artists Sofie Hviid Vinther (collaboration with BABF and Kiosken) and Lewis & Taggart.

Some prototypes will be available for purchase!

Karmaklubb* (often stylized with an asterisk) is an autonomous, nomadic queer platform and "club concept" based in Norway. Founded in 2018 by Tine Semb, it operates at the intersection of nightlife, art, and academia, famously guided by the twin principles of "thought and pleasure."

Originating from the art scene, Karmaklubb* is constantly moving into new contexts. Always with flowers, and optionally with candles. At BABF, you can get to know the concept of Karmaklubb* better — a brief look into the background, but furthermore about the practice of occupying diverse public contexts with the mission of celebrating queerness in various forms: a practice of 'trojan horsing.'

Following our interest in books as performative tools, Good Neighbour invites the collective To See the Inability to See (Maartje Fliervoet, Arefeh Riahi, and Martín La Roche Contreras) to read and unfold their book My Garden's Boundaries Are the Horizon: A Porous Reader to Unguard the Garden.

A family DIY punk zine story is presented alongside period-appropriate zines and LPs, which are played using a portable record player. The discussion covers music, the punk subculture, DIY publishing practices, and non-ISBN distribution, with a focus on the PIONEER narrative.

The first two issues having been issued in 1980 and 1981, the third issue of the PIONEER punk art zine took 40 years to get released, followed by # 4 (guest-edited by Gaye Black) and #5 (guest-edited by Bob Bert) in 2023 and 2024. The whole idea is to give our favorite punk artists the floor for exhibiting their multi-talented versality in prose, poetry, painting, drawing and picture. The Cure’s Robert Smith, The Jam’s Paul Weller, The Raincoats’ Gina Birch, The Vibrators’ Knox, Billy Childish and Lydia Lunch are just a few of those present on the pages of PIONEER.

A short talk about zines and music, digital and physical formats, and what it means to create in a DIY way today, and a small live performance.

HEADQUARTERS is a shop studio run by artist Ryuta Abe in Kamakura, Japan since 2018. It serves as both his studio and a place where he creates and sells handmade bags, photo zines printed by Xerox, and handmade art books.

Last day of BABF 2026!

In 2023–24 Halden Bookworks hosted 12 artist residents: 6 from India (The Irregular Times) , and 6 from the United States (Book/Print Artist/Scholar of Color Collective). During their residency, one artist from each country was paired up to share studio space over a 2-week period. 

The work produced from this AIR program at Halden Bookworks ranged from letterpress-printed books and broadsides, handmade paper with inclusions, pulp paintings, cyanotypes, papercuts and photo books, hand-printed and -painted experiments with type, collage, zines and more.

Participating artists: Renuka Rajiv, Colette Gaiter, Vasudhaa Narayanan, Tia Blassingame, Tarini Sethi, Keerthana Ramesh, Devin Fitzgerald, Zeenat Kuvaloor, Amogh Bhatnagar, Myron M. Beasley and Jerushia Graham.

BAV1 students at KMD present poster works in which text is used as the primary visual device. Through expressive typography, the works investigate how meaning can be amplified, challenged, or visualized when text is taken outside the confines of the book format.

How to frame a book? How can you display your newly purchased artists' book without just stuffing it inbetween other books in the shelf? An exhibition of 'book frames' prototypes made by artists Sofie Hviid Vinther (collaboration with BABF and Kiosken) and Lewis & Taggart.

Some prototypes will be available for purchase!

The 2026 fair is done, see you next time! And if you missed it, fear not – a few left overs from the fair will be available to buy from Tekstallmenningen onwards <3