AK Bookmobile at the Providence Anarchist Bookfair!
This year’s annual Anarchist Bookfair in Providence, RI took place on August 15. Being AK’s only collective member on the east coast at the moment, I try to get out to as many of the bookfairs and radical conferences I can with a trunk full of exciting AK Press & Distro stock, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to this one. But, my pals Corey & John from the Red Emma’s collective volunteered to drive on out to Providence and represent AK Press for a day; turns out they had a great time, and were even willing to guest blog about the event for Revolution by the Book! Thanks Corey & John … and PS: AK is always interested in hearing about anarchist events on the East Coast that might be good tabling ops. Even if I can’t be there, and it’s not possible for one of our Oakland collective members to fly out, we’re always happy to work out arrangements to send stock out for events, or to try to scrounge up volunteers to table for AK! So keep us posted on what you have planned in the coming months … in the meantime, here’s our intrepid volunteers’ reportback on the event:
AK Press’ Baltimore office took a trip to the Providence Anarchist Bookfair at Foo Fest, a local alternative music and arts festival. We brought the usual great selection of titles, including lots of our favorite AK Press titles, and a variety of books from some of our other favorite publishers. We also brought a large selection of DVDs and we had some brand-new books with us, including David Graeber’s ethnography, Direct Action, and AK’s new Spanish-language edition of the ever-popular Chomsky on Anarchism, both of which had just launched a few days before the event. (Note from Kate: We were really stoked to have Sobre el Anarquismo available for this event, because the organizers had done a lot of outreach to the Spanish-speaking community in Providence, and had asked us to bring a good selection of Spanish-language titles!
The music and food was great, but the people and festival atmosphere really made the Providence Anarchist Bookfair welcoming and a fun time for all. Inside the bookfair tent, beneath a large IWW Providence banner, were some of the best and hardest to find books for radical thinkers. Festival goers also painted huge exquisite corpse portraits and played locally-developed video games ported to arcade style consoles. There were a lot of craft making stations to create impressive paper bag sun bonnets and masks for all ages. Outside the smell of everything from veggie wraps and delicious gyros, one could even buy organic ice cream. (I recommend the cheesecake ice cream). There was even a mini-putting green! On the edges of the festival, art and sound installations, like a box truck outfitted with speakers playing recordings of local waterways, lined the street.
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A zine making school bus loaded with copy machines and screen printing tools had a display in which kids and adults alike used water guns to wash away words like “Copyright” and “Print Media” that had been painted on plastic panels. There was also a bicycle and see-saw powered water fountain.
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We had great neighbors for the bookfair including the Providence IWW, Justseeds, Autonomedia, South End Press, and Symposium Books. Lucy Parsons Infoshop of Boston was there as well.
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Throughout the day, local acts played music and danced and later in the evening Sun Ra Arkestra took the stage setting the scene for an incredible night in Providence.
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Mark this festival on your calendar for next year, the festival was spectacular and all the participants were friendly and excited. We were happy to meet so many amazing people and enjoyed the interesting conversations.
Thanks to the Portland Anarchist Bookfair organizers for being incredible hosts and showing AK a great time. Hope to see you next year.