Official Release
The Center for Book and Paper Arts (CPBA) at Columbia College Chicago has received an “Arts in Media” grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The Center, created within the Interdisciplinary Arts Department at Columbia College in 1993, received a $50,000 grant to produce mobile tablet apps representing existing artists’ books, and to commission new works in digital media with material counterparts.
The CPBA project, Expanded Artists’ Books: Envisioning the Future of the Book, aims to widen the audience for the under-represented art form, the artist’s book, while encouraging the creation of new work by artists in other media. The project will address the primary challenges of both book art and media art, allowing book art to become more accessible through electronic distribution and media art to gain longevity by creating a physical representation of an electronic work in book form.
Production for the edition of “Four Monologues” by Aram Saroyan, 2012, which will be adapted into a digital artist’s book>
“The Center for Book and Paper Arts will be able to create a sustainable new publishing platform for the presentation of a vastly under-represented art form,” said Steve Woodall, director of the Center for Book and Paper Arts at Columbia College. “It will enable artists to explore relationships between traditional and new media, and it has the potential to greatly expand the audience for book art.”
The NEA received 329 eligible applications under the Arts in Media category, requesting more than $36 million in funding. The CBPA is one of 78 not-for-profit organizations nationwide to receive an “Arts in Media” grant. The 78 Arts in Media grant awards total $3.55 million with an average grant amount of $45,513, and support the development, production, and national distribution of innovative media projects about the arts and media projects that can be considered works of art.
More information will be made available in coming weeks on the Interdisciplinary Arts Department / Center for Book and Paper Arts website. Questions can be directed to Jessica Cochran, jcochran@colum.edu.
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