Back in early May, I had the privilege of flying out to Italy to participate in the Torino International Book Fair. Several students along with myself submitted book projects that were collected by the department which were then selected by the well-known Italian art and design publisher, Corraini. In addition to Parsons School of Design, the MFA School of Visual Arts, the Estonian Academy of Arts, the School of Design Hongik University of Seoul and the Instituto Europeo de Design were other art and design institutions that participated in the fair.
Here is a recap of my three day trip…
On the way to the hotel via taxi
The hotel where all the students stayed in, right in the heart of downtown Torino
Here is where the book fair was held at, the historic and enormous Fiat factory
which has been transformed into the city’s convention center.
Day 1 of the fair…
a shot of my books, “First Experiences” & “The Forest”
Jason Moreno’s book
Phillip Nessen’s Moleskin book
work by Yulia Makarov (left), Lindsey Balbierz (right) & Roxanna Vizcarra (bottom)
work by Amanda Harris (left) and Christine Young (right)
Leaving the fair, I stumble upon an amazing post flash mob pillow fight
in a nearby piazza close to the hotel.
Day 2, I was able to explore more of the city on my own and found a lot of inspiring images from store signs, street graffiti to food and historic architecture.
the 2006 Winter Olympic Mascots of Italy, Neve & Gliz
Day 3 was another fun-filed, busy day at the fair. I assisted Steven Guarnaccia in a book-making workshop that challenged the participants’ notions of what defines a “book”. Majority of those that signed up for the workshop were graphic designers ranging in age from early 20’s to mid 40’s. The first project given was to create a book using only one large sheet of paper and a gluestick.
The results proved to be very interesting as some of the participants played with the idea of how textures and shadows can create content for each page while others focused on how to navigate content in a book either through turning pages, unraveling or unrolling. The second workshop was to create another book with the title “My name is Blue”. The interpretation of the title was left open to the participants and this time we supplied them with more materials to work with such as markers, rulers, colored paper, etc. In order to critically challenge the participants for this particular project, we removed any materials that contained the color blue. Here are some photos of the process:
After completing the books in an hour, everyone presented their final projects and each participant shared their concepts and thought processes.
For my last night in Torino, I wrapped up this amazing trip by heading out to Grom, which apparently is the best place to get gelato in Torino and ordered a single scoop of the mouth watering nocciolato flavor (that’s hazelnut for us americans).
I can’t thank the Corrainis enough for making my trip possible–grazie mille!! You can see more photos from the trip on my flickr account.
[Our thanks to Cat for this great wrap-up of an exciting event. Check out her website and blog!]
wonderful pictures! what an artist!
Very cool. Thanks for sharing your Torino adventure.