MCBA Biennial: John Risseeuw

Although it was nearly a month ago, I thought I would write about my experience at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts' first ever Biennial. The event, which took place Saturday, July 25, 2009, was pretty great. I had the added advantage of being able to visit home and attend a book arts event at the same time (while a Philly book artist now, I am a Minneapolitan in my roots). The event was one day only, which I thought was nice. Our conference in June was several days, but it also included an enormous book fair. With three days I still don't believe one would be able to see enough of what we had brought to town. But the single day of artists, both national and local to Minneapolis, was very inspiring and thoughtful. The theme of the day was Mature Content: Artists' Books as Social Advocate. The day began with a presentation of work by John Risseeuw, a printmaker, papermaker, book artist, and social activist who teaches at Arizona State University. He visited Philadelphia a few years ago and inspired an entire body of work for me, so I was more than happy to see him speak again in Minneapolis.

Risseauw's talk was entitled "John Risseeuw: Making a Difference?" He built his presentation around the question of how we make any kind of change by working in our studios. To put it plainly, how can we provoke change in a medium that is collected on special collections shelves in libraries, effectively kept from the public eye? Fair question, and one I have heard before. As Risseuw put it, "If I were an activist, I would be out in the streets, but I'm not an activist when I print [the words] Total Fucking Idiots!" Agreed. You can write this out, set it in type and print 500 copies of it. But then what does it do?

Risseeuw pointed out that the channels through which fine art flows are fairly bourgeois. Activism can not have such a strong affect in museums, galleries and libraries. It will rarely cause the masses to take to the streets and overthrow policy. If this is your goal, then creating artists' books is hardly the way. They can serve as beautiful, expressive and tactile historical documents, but real time activism exists in real time media like the web, the radio, even the newspaper.

So do we give up? I hardly think so. An artist's book may not incite a coup, but it can create change. Risseeuw's Landmine Series is not unlike William Snyder's 800,000 project. Both pieces aim to bring awareness to their audience about a wrong in an attempt to create a right – in Risseuw's case, about landmines in Cambodia, in Snyder's case, about the genocide in Rwanda – by educating the viewer about the stories of the victims, and by raising money to be sent to the respective countries for aid and relief. Of course, not every socially conscious art piece can be turned into cash. Indeed, some artists must purge their frustration into art without a conscientious outcome. Are these pieces any less valuable? In terms of currency, yes, but in terms of concept, not necessarily.

Risseeuw pointed out that while not everyone could afford to buy one of his Landmine prints, the story of the project reached many more people than the work itself, and in that sense the idea itself was the activism. In certain instances, the story can touch people as much as holding the actual work. In fact, it is unlikely that you, as my reader, will hold one of Risseuw's prints in your hand, but you can click on a link in this article and read about his project on the Cabbage Head Press website. Does that make his work less activist because you are reading ABOUT it and not experiencing it firsthand? Not at all. And in that way, we can be activists while our books sit on special collections shelves.

At the end of his talk, Risseeuw incited a call to arms to all artists in the audience:
Document Something.
Collaborate on Something.
Advocate for Something.
Commit Yourself (Go Do It)
He closed by saying, "The time has arrived. I'll see you in the streets, and at the press."

Through his talk, Risseeuw touched on issues we touch on continually, issues of accessibility, of audience, display, issues that seem to keep book artists from being able to make a difference with their work. But in the end all hope is not lost. While we may not be able to get people into the streets, we affect change by simply doing what we do and pursuing questions we have, working with others through collaboration, shared studio spaces, as educators and at book fairs. Books are an undertaking that can not be approached completely alone, and in this way we must share our ideas as we are creating. Wherever a single copy of an edition may end up, the creation of that single book was a journey to be shared by more than one person.

Now that paints socially conscious book artists as quiet little protesters with small signs that don't yell too loud, but I won't refute that. If this is the way one chooses to protest, isn't it still important that we are protesting? Isn't it better to print "Total fucking idiots" than to keep our mouths shut? This is the way some of us find to protest, and it is better to do what we do best and make books than to sit and do nothing at all.

On one final, personal note, I have struggled with this issue my entire art career. In college I was surrounded with politically conscious and socially active individuals whom I admired greatly and who now work in public policy, defend civil rights, advocate for people's health and make the world a better place in ways that I can not even begin to conceive of. When surrounded by fantastic individuals like these, one can feel selfish and horrible for making a conscious decision to pursue a life as an artist. In the midst of making this personal decision years ago, I confessed my feelings of inadequacy to one such extraordinary individual. She responded in a letter that I still hold dear with the following:
"Something I've always valued is that people work for... rightness, in the world and in their lives, in a lot of ways. Some people do it overtly by being professional activists, and other people do it by... trying to find their place in the world... that is that the best way you can make the world a better place is to find your place in it, to discover the person you need to be and to do what makes you happy and to work with the passions you have."
I can't deny that hanging on to these words for 10 years has been self validating, but last month I found myself surrounded by a group of people in Minneapolis that have done just that, that have found their place behind a press, making art, collecting artists' books, and sharing work and ideas that they believe in. We may not start riots or overthrow governments, but we make books. And we do our damnedest to share them.