The RSPV (Répondez s’il vous plaît, Please respond) edition of Libros Mutantes may be smaller than previous editions but it’s more ambitious than ever. In a year marked by the health emergency and safety measures, the independent publishing fair organised by La Casa Encendida returns in a new format adapted to the new restrictions.
| Duration: | 4 hours 30 minutes |
As usual, the central part of Libros Mutantes is the exhibition and sale of publications, which on this occasion is structured around major collectives that have selected the books, fanzines, magazines and hybrid objects for visitors to browse and buy during the fair.
One of them is Fiebre, a festival of photo-books founded in 2013 which has succeeded in creating nothing short of a “feverish” (forgive the pun) movement around these types of publications. For Libros Mutantes 2021, Fiebre has launched an open call for its members as well as external self-publications, offering a unique opportunity to discover the avant-garde photo-books that have emerged in recent months and celebrate the potential of photography—especially if it forms part of a book—to explain the world today.
During the Libros Mutantes fair, the Courtyard at La Casa Encendida will also become the temporary home of Tambourine, an online platform specialising in independent magazines founded by Sara Arroyo and Silvia Pérez in Madrid in 2018. Tambourine defends the role of printed matter in contemporary society and engages with the digital community through periodic publications on high-quality paper. For this edition of Libros Mutatntes, visitors to the Tambourine stand will find a carefully curated selection of independent magazines from a variety of sources and featuring different themes, but with a special focus on design publications.
This edition of the fair also includes Choose Your Own Normality, a participatory art project founded out of the need to reinvent a present that seems to be anchored to a return to how things were before, unable to look beyond the most obvious aspects of the future. This proposal by Raquel Meyers and Borja Crespo, selected at the Babestu open call launched by Azkuna Zentroa – La Alhóndiga, is an analogue and digital space for reflection open to all collaborations that propose an imaginative vision of today and tomorrow. It emerged out of the need to expose new visions that come very close to the dystopias of the collective imagination, proposing a spider’s web derived from a series of printed fanzines connected to an online rhizome made up multiple dialogues in different formats.
This year access to the Courtyard is by appointment only, in 30-minute sessions and small groups to comply with the strict health measures. Tickets must therefore be booked in advance.
*Times:
- Friday 23rd, 5–9.30 pm
- Saturday 24th, 11 am–3 pm and 5–9.30 pm
- Sunday 25th, 11 am–3 pm and 5–9.30 pm
