“Something between a book fair and a comics festival”: an idea by two fellow students grew into a popular art book fair that will next take over Sörnäinen campus
Under the Leaf is a two-day art book fair that will be organized in 5-6 June in Uniarts Helsinki’s Sörnäinen campus. Visitors will have the chance to peruse self-published art publications from makers representing various artistic disciplines. The event will include exhibitions, screenings, readings, book launches and talks, as well as satellite events around Helsinki.
The Under the lLaf artist book fair was first conceived when alumni of the Academy of Fine Arts Hikari Nishida and Sara Blosseville met in Helsinki in 2019. Blosseville then studied sculpture, and Nishida, a former exchange student, was back in Finland for an internship at galleria Kosminen. Both bookworms, they shared a common dream of creating an art book fair of their own in Helsinki.
“At the time, I was running the homemade zine press Fétiche Editions, which was mostly an excuse to collaborate with interesting artists, but also took me to different art book fairs across Europe”, says Blosseville.
At Kosminen, Nishida created her project The Temporary Bookshelf, an initiative focusing on artist publications. It has since taken many other forms, such as pop-up events, book launches, and now a publishing house ttbbooks.
“We both grew up in France, where there is a strong culture of self-publication, and a general interest for alternative press as an important counterforce to the establishment. The artist publication scene is quite vibrant there”, Blosseville elaborates.
From an under-the-radar event to a popular festival
Each edition of Blosseville and Nishida’s art book festival has been organised with a different collaborator and location. This year, the book fair is organised in collaboration with Uniarts Helsinki’s Academy of Fine Arts. Blosseville and Nishida were invited by Tatu Tuominen, lecturer in printmaking, to organise a course on self-publishing called Printed Matter. The festival is a continuation of that course, with course participants also displaying their works in the festival.
Under the Leaf started as a small-scale event on the margins of the art scene but has since grown in both exhibitors and visitors. The first edition took place in 2022 at Monitoimitila O., a small artist-run space in East Helsinki, with around forty authors and publishers. In 2024, the event brought over 700 people to Art School Maa on the island of Suomenlinna over the course of a weekend. This June, more than 100 exhibitors will take over the Tori lobby space in Uniarts Helsinki’s Sörnäinen campus. Special guests include Lagon Revue, a French limited-edition publication of experimental and graphic novels. Organisers of the Tokyo Art Book Fair will also visit for a public discussion. Exhibitors are both local and international creators and represent diverse artistic disciplines.
Both Blosseville and Nishida have observed a growing interest for artist publications, from both the creators’ side and the public.
“For creators, it’s an exciting artistic medium to experiment with and an effective way to share ideas, offering endless possibilities. Being an artist can sometimes be isolating, so highly collective events like book fairs are important moments for building community. For the public, a book fair is a unique opportunity to discover what creators are working on right now and to engage directly with artists.”
The Under the Leaf art book festival will take place on 5–6 June at Uniarts Helsinki’s Sörnäinen campus. More information and programme for Under the Leaf in the event calendar.