The College Book Art Association Annual Meeting was held January 4-5 at Yale University. The words “The Library is the Heart of the University” carved above the entrance to the school’s main library indicate this institution’s special relationship to the book and book arts, making it an ideal choice for the location of the CBAA event.

Inge Bruggeman (above), who was Interarts visiting lecturer in Book and Paper for the 2011-2012 academic year, presented a lecture entitled “Teaching Beyond the Object,” where she explored the educator’s role to understand the role of the object, as well as how, when, and why a work transcends the object state. For the complete CBAA Annual Meeting Program listing, click here.

CBPA Director Steve Woodall did not present at this year’s meeting, but attended the sessions. He followed up the conference with a trip to Brooklyn to visit the studios of Laura Anderson Barbata, a prominent interdisciplinary artist and activist who is involved with CBPA on an ongoing Yanomami paper project. Barbata has recently released a bilingual book through Turner Publishing entitled Laura Anderson Barbata: Transcommunality, which documents her work with the Moko Jumbies (stilt walker) performance artists in New york, Trinidad and Tobago, and Oaxaca Mexico. Many of the photographs in the volume were exhibited in her retrospective Among Tender Roots at the CBPA gallery in 2010. The book includes the essay “Community, Collaboration, and Social Sculpture: The Interdisciplinary Art of Laura Anderson Barbata,” by InterArts Assistant Professor Melissa Potter, in which Potter details Barbata’s involvement with the intricate connections between communities and their art creations.

Front cover of Barbata’s new book Laura Anderson Barbata: Transcommunality.