Remembering the past and looking to the future
The fair first started at the suggestion of two of Ms Ting’s friends from a design firm, simply because Singapore did not yet have an art book fair.
“Whatever we could rush within the timeline was what we did,” she said, revealing that the trio were too swamped by their full-time jobs. The other two co-organisers are no longer involved with planning the fair.
Ms Ting said: “At the time, there were very few people working in this realm of artist books and zines. My understanding of it at the time was very different.
“What we pulled together was also very preliminary in terms of understanding. We had people selling just very random things that almost had nothing to do with art books. It was either art or books.”
The fair has gone through multiple changes over the years, including opening up the call for exhibitors, visual rebranding, tightening its curation, and introducing ticketing in 2023.
One-day tickets for the fair are $6 online and $8 on site.
Ms Ting, who does not draw a salary from organising the event, explained that exhibitors are charged a table fee of between $300 and $550 for a booth – but this covers only a portion of operational fees.
“We are essentially self-funded, self-organised, which means that there are a lot of the costs that are borne by us,” she said, adding that the fair is run by a small team of about three to four people each year.
The team is paid on a project basis, though it is below market rate.
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