Responding to the expanding global network of art book fairs, Volume MTL was created to fill a gap in Montreal’s arts scene. The need for a major annual gathering along the lines of the pioneering New York Art Book Fair had been discussed among those in the local arts milieu for years. Drawing from the success of ARCMTL’s annual small press and zine fair, Expozine and its Grande print and poster art fair, Volume MTL focuses on the distinct world of artist’s books and art publishing. Volume MTL is not only the first art-publishing event in Montreal and Quebec, it’s also the first bilingual event of its kind in North America. Providing a gathering space for English and French artists based in Montreal, North America, and internationally, Volume MTL encourages and supports the arts publishing sector from many angles. At a time where art publishing and innovative and artisanal artists’ book production is exploding around the world, Volume MTL fosters the development of the sector locally and nationally by generating communication between audiences, publishers, and artists.

Volume MTL was developed by ARCMTL beginning in 2015 with a series of meetings with partners in local visual arts and arts publishing organizations that recognized the opportunity and need for a local equivalent to the growning international milieu of art book fairs. ARCMTL had seen this sector explode beyond the margins of its own huge Expozine annual small press fair. In a similar fashion, the print and poster art area that had grown for years within Expozine was given its own annual fair by ARCMTL in 2016 when it launched Grande and co-founded the Montreal Printed Arts Festival alongside several local artist-run centres. Finally, over the fall of 2017 and through 2018, ARCMTL organized Volume 1: Art and the Book and held the first edition in October 2018.Here is the team that developed Volume 1 MTL: Art and the Book.

Louis Rastelli, Director, ARCMTL
Anne Bertrand, Director, ARCA
Evlyn Laurin, production and brand development
Ryan Thompson, Harley Smart, Anteism Publishing and Bookart co-founders, instrumental in the development, web design and branding
Etienne Murphy and Melissa Desjardins, graphic design
Max Stein, web development
SAT (Société des arts technologiques), partner and host of the first Volume art book fair. Volume 1 MTL: Art and the Book was also forged through the commitment of its original programming partners: Artexte, Atelier Circulaire, École de Design UQAM, Pica Magazine, Dare-Dare, Atelier A. Piroir, Centre for Expanded Poetics, Concordia FARR (Fine Arts Reading Room), Médiathèque Gaetan Dostie, Coop Coup d’Griffe.

Special thanks to the Conseil des arts du Canada and the Conseil des arts de Montréal for supporting Volume MTL in its inaugural year.