The sixth edition of Booked: Hong Kong Art Book Fair at Tai Kwun Contemporary opened on August 30 and ran through Sunday, September 1, bringing more than 110 artists, publishers, organizations, and booksellers to the JC Contemporary exhibition space. Along with providing the Hong Kong public with a range of programs such as talks, workshops, and performances, the book fair successfully welcomed dozens of local, regional, and international exhibitors, who displayed everything from zines and exhibition catalogs to multiple-hundred-paged artist books. After parsing through the selection, here are some of the editors’ highlights. 

Food: not only is it necessary for survival, but it’s also a way to bring people together. Meals can serve as  the link to our histories and cultures, even after we  have left our native homes for foreign lands. In Recipes for Resistance (2021), published by the Migrant Zine Collective, Strange Goods, and Auckland Zinefest, the reclamation of cultural foods becomes a way to preserve the memories of those who came before us. A collection of recipes, essays, and artworks by migrants of color, Recipes for Resistance is a tool for resilience against the tumultuous times we find ourselves in. 

Tofu Lovers Club – Issue one: LEMON (2023) is a comic anthology by Hong Kong artists Jade Poon, easyeasyrol (Carol Ng), Pearl Law, and nowai. The artists present works inspired by the flavors that a lemon can arouse, along with four illustrated stories about the sour, sweet, bitter, and savory feelings that life can incite. Imaginative in every way, Tofu Lovers Club’s tales of feline painters, vampire chefs, and other eccentric characters show us how the many facets of a simple lemon can transcend the mundane.  

CAMILLA ALVAREZ-CHOW    

Striking colors and the clatter of plastic erupt as dishes collide onto a table at one of Singapore’s open-air food markets, also known as hawker centers. The book Hawker Colours: Melamine Tableware in Singapore (2023) by Sheere Ng and Justin Zhuang, co-founders of In Plain Words editorial studio, answers the question of why the plastic tableware that defines these iconic centers are so electric. The book delves into the cultural significance of the cheap, vibrant dishes, which have a defining value to Singapore’s preservation of culture. Featuring shop owners’ stories about what constitutes their color choices, from a “color-coding” system to beliefs on colors raising appetite, Hawker Colours establishes that the tableware inspires multiple meanings, including the liveliness and endurance of hawker culture which has dwindled amid modern food trends. A form of documentation and preservation, Hawker Colours captures the nation's identity through its culinary heritage.

ANTONIA EBNER  

Hong Kong philosopher Yuk Hui’s concept of “cosmotechnics” calls for radical pluralism within Eurocentric discourse on technology, as every culture experiences technological advancement in different ways. In his book Art and Cosmotechnics, published by e-flux in 2021, Hui addresses the challenges of technology, artificial intelligence, and robotics as they encroach on art and traditional thought, with a focus on the cosmotechnics of Chinese landscape painting. Exploring the significance of shanshui (mountain and water) motifs in the face of rapid technological developments, Hui frames the cybernetic revolution not as a hindrance, but as an opportunity to rethink the connection between art and technology. 

A whimsical, spiral-bound book, The Moon & Stars Can Be Yours: Notes On Subway Psychics by New York-based artist and writer Magali Duzant dives into the modern world of spiritualism and psychics, inspired by the growing popularity of astrology among younger generations. Published in 2019 by Conveyor Studio, the book serves as a guide for the believers and non-believers of celestial spirituality, exploring aura photographs, email fortune-telling subscriptions, and archival images, including flyers that were found on the New York subway.

ANNETTE MEIER

One of the most renowned authors and artists of Lebanon’s postwar generation, the late Etel Adnan was a distinguished poet. Her anthology Sea and Fog, published by the Brooklyn-based nonprofit Nightboat Books in 2012, is a testament to her lyric resonance. Short meditations on the self, nature, and their intersections exude a pleasant melancholy, much like the abstract paintings for which Adnan is revered. Not quite narrative, her passages are as haunting and ephemeral as the subjects her poetry book is titled after.

Themed “Identity,” the fourth issue from Dirty magazine, a Mumbai-based print publication, is a stunning display of fluidity, queerness, and liberation throughout the Indian subcontinent. Shot entirely by the iconic British fashion photographer Tim Walker, the issue celebrates the multifaceted lives, religions, genders, and bodies of those who are not traditionally represented in South Asian media. Presenting their stories through a series of essays, contributors also participated in fantastical, personalized photoshoots that highlight their unique selfhood.

ANNA LENTCHNER  

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