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Reading The Migration Library Exchanges and Mail Art Gallery

From 2017 when the first RML publications were produced until 2025 when RML3: Undercurrents and Folds inventory was coming to an end, RML distribution has included free exchanges, in person and through mail art networks. This gallery introduces some of the many ‘zines, chapbooks, artist books, mail art, small press publications, etc. that have accumulated as a result of the RML exchanges. Many of them take on the topics of migration or diaspora, in a continuation of the overall themes in Reading the Migration Library. Check out the artists’ links and stories!

A table of artist books that are described in this post.

Mirroring a blue sky in Montréal

Three folded booklets are lying on a wooden table. The booklets are an eighth-letter size and are colourful with digitally abstracted line drawings.

Hometown studies in abstraction, light, and letter-sizes

A wall with brightly coloured printed posters taped onto it.

Zine Swap

Liza Leyla's book is lying on top of the postage stamped envelope that is was sent in. The cover has a simple drawing of a woman in a strapless gown reaching out to a tall flowering plant.

Publications from Belgium

Six art cards are lying on a wooden table. They feature drawings of ordinary objects on blank backgrounds. Some include thread and ribbons and layered papers.

Exchanging Prompts

Eight colourful, collaged zines made at the zine-making event are arranged on a table.

Social Justice Zine-Making Celebration

From the publication, a large drawing of the Chnese character 米 mǐ (uncooked rice or grains) is seen.

Three Generations Happy Family

Six photos are spread on a table with an open mailing envelope behind them.

Brandon Leung’s Houseboy Series

Four handmade artistamps each have a slogan made from cut up text and collage: "collage expressing your inate creativity", "handmade is heart made", "mail art happens here", and "explore the unexpected".

Gingersnaps Mail Art

A small room containing two armchairs with cushions infront of floor to ceiling bookshelves, over-stuffed with books. Infront of the chairs is a display table with the publications from the third RML series.

Geraniums, a Blue Glass Cat, and Weather Exchanged in the Frontyard

Three small folded paper books are standing in a line.

Keep this: making mail art

Two pages of Brenna Maag's An Invitation TO Notice" desk calendar are spread out on a table. They each show blurred images of trees and foliage from a pin hole camera exposure. One is a winter scene and one is of green leaves in summer.

Alternate Exposures

SAFE zine cover fills the frame. It features a black and white photo produced by a pin hole camera. The photo shows a fuzzy silhouette of a single human figure framed by trees.

Zine Exchange at SAFE

A small wooden shelf holds about 20 poetry chapbooks and memoirs.

Books Exchanged for Reading at McLoughlin Gardens

Five books are spread on a table with a pottery mug in the top right corner.

Words exchanged at Word Vancouver

A view of five zines lying in a small pile on a wooden table.

Exchanges from grunt gallery

The exhibition catalogue, in the form of a stapled brochure, is seen open to its first page. The artists' names (Fawn Daphne Plessner and Susanna Kamon) are printed on the right side along with the title, "Near Dwellers as Legal Beings". On the right the inside cover features an image of a coyote at the edge of a forest-lined body of water.

Mail Art Report: 3 books

A birds eye view of the artist books and ephemera that were received in exchange for books in the Reading the Migration Library exchange event at 37 Looe Stree in Plymouth, UK on September 19, 2023. In clockwise order starting top left, colour printed cards and poster from "Ruptured Domesticity" project, a handwritten lyric sheet on ruled paper by Mo Bottomley, a small colou-printed 'zine titled "Episode in two flats and an office" by Sef Penrose, a colour printed and coil-bound picture book called "The Leak" by Tim Britton, a thick, hardcover artist monogram titled "Four Hundred and Twenty-nine Significant Moments: Documenting an Artist's Research and Processes" by Lisa Watts, a grey artist's catalogue called "Materials of Resistance" by Clare Thornton, and a sheaf of loose printed papers making up a publications called "Neighbourhood 1. (Series 1:3 2021) by Merrydith Russell.

Happy Exchanges from 37 Looe Street

Two book chapbooks and a sheet of 4 artist-stamps. Books: "Walking the Dog" with line drawing of Setter pointing nose to right; Ineffable Mystical Poems: with 5 pointed star coloured yellow with eyes on the top point; stamps - with line drawing of stone with "Mondo Postal 10" as title.

Mail art from The Poem Factory (Ed Varney)

Four books by Liza Leyla are lying on a grey surface. Three feature paintings by the writer. One features a photo of the writer.

La bibliothèque Liza Leyla

Front page of the newspaper, "Embassy Cultural House"

Embassy Cultural House, “A Trans-National Artist Collective…”

Afro-Cuban woman in a white dress holds a lit white candle and reaches toward the viewer.

New Afro-Cuban Writing in Canada

Comforting Mail Art

A hand is seen turning the page on Juan Cisnero's newspaper titled Grapes of Steinbeck. The pages are off-white and the ink is brown. The page being turned has printed text on the facing side but comic images are revealed as the page is turned to the paper's inside surfaces.

The Grapes of Steinbeck

A portion of a letter is seen with some of the typedd text and a small circular photo of a tree infront of a cloudy sky. The name of the writer, "Brenna" is seen next to the photo.

Studio notes on a camera obscura

(All posts by Lois Klassen, unless otherwise specified.)

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