Penland Summer Workshop /  by Alisa Banks

Penland School of Craft

I am excited to announce that I will be teaching Adventure Travelog, a week-long workshop at Penland School of Craft located outside Asheville, North Carolina.

The workshop will cover map-making, stamp carving, frottage (rubbings), and book binding, to name a few, and will take place May 25 - 30, 2025.

Full and partial scholarships with and without a work requirement are available. The scholarship portal is open until December 16. 2024. Regular registration begins February 3, 2025.

Alabastron Journal /  by Alisa Banks

Alabastron journal ships July 2024

I am pleased to announce publication of my essay, History of a People: Tracing Cultural Development Through Scent, in the premier issue of Alabastron, a journal published by the Institute for Art and Olfaction. The theme for the first volume is The Scent of Identity: Olfaction’s Role in Culture, Community, and the Formation of Self. My contribution is an embodied narrative that discusses the development and selection of the scents used in my artist’s book History of a People.

Preorders are available here. Shipping starts July 10, 2024.

Sadikichi Award Finalist /  by Alisa Banks

I am thrilled to announce having been named a finalist for the Sadikichi Award for Experimental Scent for my project History of a People for the 2024 Art and Olfaction Awards given by the Institute for Art and Olfaction. The winners of each category will be announced at the Art and Olfaction Award ceremony in Lisbon, June 7.

Holding Ground: Artist’s Books for the NMWA /  by Alisa Banks

I am honored to have been one of nine book artists invited to complete a commissioned work to commemorate the grand re-opening of the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, DC. My proposed work, History of a People traces African American history and culture through scent.

Each of the six bottles (or chapters) holds a custom blended scent that corresponds to the cultural landscape of selected historical periods: Roots, Journey, Arrival, Harrow, Protest,Visioning. The scents symbolize the complex layering involved in the creation of a new culture.

Holding Ground: Artist’s Books for the NMWA, will be on display until October 2024. The celebration is year-long and the museum is planning several events. 

Back to Front: Artists’ Books by Women /  by Alisa Banks

Inheritance is on view in the 112th Annual Exhibition: Back to Front: Artists’ Books by Women, at Randolph, College in Lynchburg, VA. It is one of several on loan from the Cynthia Sears Collection at Bainbridge Museum of Art, in Washington. Ancillary to the exhibition are viewer engagement opportunities, including the repository of one-page books in the Quarantine Public Library, to which I contributed 2020, a book honoring victims of police violence. The exhibition will be on view through April 11, 2024.

In This Moment: The Book as Witness /  by Alisa Banks

History of a People, deluxe edition, closed

History of a People will be on view in In This Moment: The Book as Witness, curated by artist Julie Chen at the Environmental Design Library at UC Berkeley, January 10 – March 3, 2024.

CODEX International Book Fair /  by Alisa Banks

 Three of my books on view at the CODEX Foundation’s International Book Fair, in Oakland, February 4–7, 2024.

Emergence will be offered at The CODEX Foundation’s Art From Afar table inside the entry of the venue.

History of a People and Self will be offered at the Book/Print Artists of Color Collective Table #124.

Paper is People /  by Alisa Banks

Lineage

I’m pleased to announce that my textile work Lineage is on view in Paper Is People: Decolonizing Global Paper Cultures, at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts (MCBA).

The exhibition “offers a new definition of paper­ within a global and decolonial framework, and will be on view at MCBA until August 12, 2023. A reception will be held Thursday, June 22, 7–9pm.

The exhibition is free and open to the public. Additional information can be found here.