Info Special Guests Talks
Info Exhibitors Talks
Info Exhibitions
UTL 4 (main info)
SPECIAL GUEST TALK, LAGON REVUE
Friday 5th
12:30-13:15 / Auditorium
Talk title: UNDER THE GROUND
Séverine and Sammy take you to the forest, under the ground, to cities and villages, and out on the road for a tour of books and fanzines.
SPECIAL GUEST TALK MIHAELA MÎNDRU
Friday 5th
13:25-13:55 talk
13:55-14:30 screening of her animation works
Auditorium
In her presentation, Mihaela Mîndru will trace her movement between mediums, from drawing to film, music, radio, and publishing, revealing how these fragments interconnect into a larger whole, and reflecting on the challenge of preserving a core artistic intention within an ever-expanding practice.
SPECIAL GUESTS, TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR (Naoko Higashi)
& TOKIO ART BOOK FAIR (Akira Kuroki) JP
Saturday 6th, 12:30-13:00 / Auditorium
Talk title: Under the Lines: Drawing, Illustration, and Art Book Fairs in Japan
Last year, TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR took on its largest edition to date, aiming to become a platform that embraces as many small voices as possible.
In contrast, TOKIO ART BOOK FAIR—held at the smallest scale in TABF’s history—focuses on smaller communities, cultivating depth, intimacy, and a sense of friendship.
In this talk, Naoko Higashi and Akira Kuroki will briefly introduce both fairs, along with an exhibition of books featuring illustration and drawing in Japan by artists connected to the fairs.
SPECIAL GUESTS COLORAMA (Johanna Maierski)
Saturday 6th, 13:10-13:40 / Auditorium
Workshop title: Yours Truly
In this workshop, we will discuss different forms of collaboration between artists and publishers, artists and artists and publishers and publishers.
Johanna Maierski will present some models from their own experience and participants are invited to share their own experiences or frameworks. Talking payment, feeling cared for, giving credit, feeling exploited, being uplifted, defining fields of expertise etc.
We are honoured to count as our guests five international figures of the publishing world to Helsinki.
Each guest is invited to give a presentation of their works (see timetable for talks + exhibitions)
Lagon Revue (Séverine Bascouert and Sammy Stein) FR
Séverine Bascouert and Sammy Stein often work together. The results of their research take the form of fanzines or books, talk and installations. Through writing, archival documents, comics, drawings and photos, they produce narratives based on both real and fictional events.
In 2014, accompanied by other artist friends, they founded LAGON, an annual bilingual magazine focusing on new forms of graphic storytelling. In 2025, a new series of zines was launched : in France Atlantide Séverine and Sammy explore places occupied by individuals whose ideas, beliefs, convictions or visions transcend common reason.
For the occasion of Under the Leaf, Lagon will exhibit a new scope of works especially connected to their venue to Finland, at Pitted Dates Gallery.
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Mihaela Mîndru FR / MD
Mihaela Mîndru is a multidisciplinary artist based in Paris, working across animation, painting, drawing, and music.
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TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR (Naoko Higashi) JP
& TOKIO ART BOOK FAIR (Akira Kuroki) JP
For the occasion of Under the Leaf, Naoko Higashi & Akira Kuroki curated an exhibition of artist books from Japan focusing on drawings and illustrations, representing the diverse and vivid contemporary scene of publishing in Japan. The exhibition will be on view at Tori Stage in the center of the book fair.
TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR (TABF)
TABF was founded in 2009 as Japan’s first book fair dedicated to art publications. Held annually, it brings together independent publishers, galleries, bookshops, as well as individual artists and collectives. TABF aims to serve as a platform for a diverse and international art publishing community. For its 15th edition in 2025, TABF was held over two separate weeks for the first time, hosting approximately 560 exhibitors in total. The next edition will take place at the end of January 2027, again across two weekends.
TABF also runs a “Guest Country” program, which each year highlights the publishing culture of a selected country or region. In 2023, the program focused on the five Nordic countries. On that occasion, Hikari Nishida from Under the Leaf participated as one of the curators, presenting art books from Finland. TABF is therefore especially pleased to be participating in Under the Leaf this time.
Naoko Higashi
Naoko Higashi was involved in the launch of the first TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR in 2009. Since then, she has served as Project Manager, directing various aspects, including the selection of exhibitors, program planning and production, overall operations, and international collaboration initiatives. Currently based in Fukuoka and Tokyo, she has been Co-Director of Pages | Fukuoka Art Book Fair since 2024. She also organizes and produces exhibitions and events related to publishing in Japan and internationally.
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TOKIO ART BOOK FAIR
TOKIO ART BOOK FAIR is a new fair launched in 2025 by TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR (TABF), structured around networks within art book publishing. Through a format distinct from conventional fairs and its compact scale, it aims to activate the independent publishing scene in Japan and internationally, as well as exchanges among participants.
The shift from “TOKYO” to “TOKIO” signals an intentional repositioning: not as an alternative to TABF, but as a parallel platform offering a different perspective. This subtly “bootleg-like” naming reframes TABF’s alternative potential while embracing the heterogeneous, cross-cultural nature of art book publishing.
Rather than an open call, the fair adopts an invitation-based format in which selected host exhibitors nominate publishers and artists from their own networks, expanding participation through both transnational and local relationships.
Akira Kuroki
Editorial director and distributor. Since 2014, a member of the organizing team of TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR (TABF), and from 2025 serves as Director of TOKIO ART BOOK FAIR, a new fair launched by TABF. In addition to editorial planning and distribution in art publishing, he is involved in cultural exchange projects between Japan and the Netherlands in collaboration with Studio The Future.
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COLORAMA (Johanna Maierski)
Colorama is a project space in Berlin founded by Johanna Maierski in 2015. Colorama publishes art books and runs educational programs around self-publishing, printing and binding. Their publications present artists within the field of serial narration, as well as projects that explore forms of correspondence and shared authorship – always emerging from a collaborative process.
Since 2020 Colorama is co-hosting Colorama Workshop together with Lauria Joan, an educational platform around self-publishing – organizing and hosting festivals, memberships and workshop who aim to make publishing and printing more accessible for marginalized communities and individuals with fewer resources.