Our Favourite Australian Publishers at the Melbourne Art Book Fair
Images by Tobias Titz, Emile Zile, Tim Stone.
From the 16th to 18th of May, Melbourne Design Week in conjunction with the National Gallery of Victoria present the eleventh annual Melbourne Art Book Fair.
Held in the NGV’s Great Hall underneath the world’s largest stained-glass ceiling the Stallholder Fair is the biggest in the country, bringing more than 100 of the publishers, artists, designers, and bookstores from the Asia-Pacific region together. For three days, the Great Hall becomes a marketplace of limited-edition books, prints, magazines, and more while also hosting talks with authors, photographers, and designers. It’s a great weekend full of events, among a great week full of events with Melbourne Design week, but also a place where you can visit some of the publishers from Australia and beyond for yourself. Here are five of our favourite Australian publishers at the fair who we think you should check out on your visit to the fair. Go spend your money and support print!
Tall Poppy Press
Tall Poppy Press is a Melbourne based publisher that was started in 2021 by photographer Matt Dunne, with the intention of being a cheerleader for the great art that is made by Australian artists. With strong attention to detail and emphasis on the quality and texture of books, Tall Poppy’s publications are just as much a joy to hold and touch as they are to look at the work inside. For the last four years they have beautifully published works of stories that are uniquely Australian, from those of the environment to culture and identity that exists within the world's most multicultural nation. Two of last year’s releases tell stories of the latter with Vietnamese-born, Australian-based photographer Phuong Nguyen Le’s, Sunshine, telling the story of post-war trauma and resettlement in Australia among Vietnamese migrants after the American war and Lebanese-born, Melbourne-based photographer Ayman Kaake’s, 99 Names, beautifully discusses the necessity of authentic connection and the pain caused by the violent criminalisation of homosexuality based on religion through a series of intimate photographs. Tall Poppy’s releases are exciting, thought provoking, full of hope and at the best of times lined with an underlying sense of heartbreak. If you want to hear more about Tall Poppy Press, you can read our interview with Matt from early 2024.
Kids Own Publishing
Kids Own Publishing is one of the most wholesome publishers at this year’s book fair. An amazing non-for-profit arts organisation started in Melbourne in 2005, that publishes books by kids, for kids. Working in collaboration with artists, children are able to create a book with a story that resonates with them. Since their 2005 inception Kids Own have co-created and published over 200 books by children aged 0-12, highlighting their stories that reflect their own unique worlds and where they can see themselves and their communities in. Kids Own is truly doing something special, supporting, confidence, creativity, self-representation, connection, while also encouraging multilingualism. It is beautiful. Kids Own claim to change the world one book at a time and that they are.
MOM Publishing
MOM Publishing is the publishing arm of what has now become one of the biggest cultural drivers for Melbourne’s art scene. Started by filmmaker and photographer Oscar O’Shea in 2020, MOM has since branched out into a gallery, store, café, and the host of many sold out live music events that have bought out some of Australia’s best bands and musicians. Their café and retail store, Candy is their most recent venture, bringing a new approach to retail, giving the brands they stock their own exclusive mini stores within the store where 100% of the proceeds go back to the brands. As a publisher, MOM holds that community ethos near and dear, focused on the creation of well-crafted and affordable books that showcase the work of artists not based on their notoriety but their vision and intent. Some of the many MOM Publications of note are Oscar O’Shea’s, Carnival that gives a deep, spy-like dive into the culture around the Melbourne Cup horse race; Kira Issar’s As a Djinn, a collection of photographs from Kira’s hometown of Delhi, India, observes the city through a lens of grief and emotional turbulence; and David Forcier’s RECKLESS, an intimate photobook showcasing the underground Australian punk scene. According to a recent Instagram post, MOM are launching three new books in the next week, keep an eye out for those at the book fair.
M.33
Since 1993 M.33 has represented and published the work of some of Australia’s best photographers. Based in Melbourne, for over three decades they’ve continued to work collaboratively with some arts and designers to produce books with a strong focus on excellent design, thoughtful and thought-provoking content. Striving to create books artists want, without the limitations that may be imposed by commercial considerations. Notable M.33 titles include David Wadelton’s Small Business that features photographs with a familiar feeling of small family run businesses in and around suburban Melbourne that are sadly fading away and Tammy Law’s Cancelled & Removed which explores the stories of those affected by forced migration. Sparked by her own family’s experiences, using delicate visual language in combination of photographs, found imagery and texts from individuals who have been affected by Australia’s detention and deportation legislation. M.33 tells the undertold stories from suburban Australia and beyond.
Slow Burn Books
Slow Burn books is a Melbourne-based online art bookshop and publisher focused on connecting Asian artists, writers, and publishers with international audiences, selling and publishing titles from Asia and its diaspora. Founded by Hong-Kong born artist-curator Nikki Lam and designer, video director, and creative producer Scott Heinrich. Slow Burn Books are creating a bridge across the Pacific Ocean, selling a long list of eclectic titles you’re likely not to find anywhere else in the country. Slow Burn has a long history with the book fair originally being launched at the MABF in 2020, five years on from their debut, they’re launching their first title, Inheritance, a photobook by Phuong Ngo at this year’s fair. Inheritance along with being Slow Burn’s debut publication is Ngo’s debut monograph and forms part of his ongoing explorations of his Vietnamese-Australian history, through familial archive and the intimacies and interconnections that come with it. The book is centred around materials from his ancestral home in Vietnam, reframing histories of occupation, conflict, and displacement. Inheritance, is the first of what we can only imagine will be many incredible releases from Slow Burn Books.