Artists’ Books as Form and Idea
April 14–August 31, 2026
Music, Art & Architecture (MAA) Library
Level 3, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC)
1961 East Mall, Vancouver
Library hours: https://maa.library.ubc.ca/barber-library/hours/
This exhibition highlights a selection of artists’ books created by students in VISA 376: Artist Books as Form and Idea, taught by Assistant Professor Dan Starling. It approaches book creation from the perspective of contemporary art and explores the artist book as an expansion of both art and books. Through an ongoing collaboration between Professor Starling, MAA, and Rare Books & Special Collections (RBSC), VISA 376 students are provided with opportunities to explore notable examples of artists’ books from the collections of these two library branches, as they produce their own work for the course.
Each display case exhibits students’ creative outputs from specific course projects: (1) different versions of a collaborative class book that is digitally printed and glue bound, a risograph printed zine, a hardcover journal with handmade marbled paper; (2) materials that consider the book as object, and (3) another collaborative class book project that uses handset metal type, handmade paper for the cover, and photopolymer plates printed on a letterpress proofing press.
Exhibiting students:
Samantha Adachi, Ava Brown, Mofan Chen, Marco Comejo, Luka Lukic deBakker, Carmen Diaz Garcia, Hannah Douglas-Ezzat, Olivia Fam, Janelle Gage, Hanna Gao, Haibei He, Simar Kamal, Ravneet Kaur, Agnes Kim, Linyi Li, Alex Mah, Chantelle Marchand, Izayah Ouano-Dotson, Chuwen Ruan, Chiara Susanto, Kelcy Wang, Gabe Zamora, and Esther Zhang
Photos: Dan Starling
Photos: Dan Starling
Photos: Dan Starling
Photos: Dan Starling
