Pacific Festival of the Book
March 23-25, 2007
Public Workshops and Trade Fair Saturday March 24th 10am-6pm
Victoria Arts Connection
2750 Quadra Street
Victoria, BC V8T 4E8
T. 250-477-9089
www.victoriaartsconnectionsociety.org

For Immediate Release:

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Pacific Festival of the Book exhibition "The Art of the Book" to feature installation and conceptual art

Barber - Strictly Confidential picAs part of Victoria Arts Connection's The Pacific Festival of the Book, "The Art of the Book" exhibition to be held March 3-31, 2007 has already created a buzz in the arts communities. "The call for submissions that went out in the last week of November has already seen several high quality submissions from book artists, book binders, sculptors, 2d artists and conceptual artists" says gallery curator Heidi Bergstrom. The final list of artists won't be announced until the beginning of February but the VAC Gallery event is sure to surpass even the curator's original vision of the exhibition.

One such submission is from Professor Bruce Barber, PhD of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with 2 conceptual works. One entitled "The Novel Exchange" is a collaborative work between Barber and Australian artist Anne Graham. Novel Exchange is an interactive installation where the “top 100 novels from the past 100 years”, a very gendered, American and Euro-centric collection is arranged on a long book shelf attached to the gallery wall. Adjacent to the shelf is a coffee table upon which are placed a tea service and biscuits Barber - Novel Exchange picprovided for individuals who bring their novels to exchange with those they chose to replace from the collection. The space also provides visitors with a comfortable arm chair in which to relax and read among some tropical plants and in the company of two Australian budgerigars in a cage. This installation originally took place in the Gallery of the Newcastle University School of Fine Arts and the Newcastle Regional Art Gallery in Australia. "I am not sure how we will deal with the budgies but we want the installation to be as true to the original concept as possible so we will have to figure that out" says Bergstrom. She also hopes to strike up a partnership with local used bookstores to round up the top 100 novels. "It will be interesting to see what novels are exchanged - presumably the exchangers will use the opportunity to replace those books with what they believe are the top 100 novels and thereby establish a new top 100 that reflects a broader culture" says Bergstrom.

The second piece by Barber entitled "Strictly Confidential" consists of a collection of over 100 messages from Africa, Asia and the Middle East that Barber received via email from January 2003 to January 2004. Each letter solicited support to launder millions of dollars through the artist’s bank account. Four bound copies of the text Strictly Confidential containing several hundred email messages were placed on a shelf attached to the wall and 40 enlarged copies of the texts were pinned to walls of the Gallery. For the VAC gallery installation 2 copies of "Strictly Confidential" will be available with a selection of the enlarged text pieces throughout the gallery. "These works really support of the spirit of The Pacific Festival of the Book and I am very excited about all the other proposals coming in as well. The exhibition adds a richness to the festival and truly reflects the interdisciplinary nature of the VAC" Bergstrom adds. Artists wishing to submit their work for the exhibition or authors, booksellers and publishers interested in getting involved in any aspect of the festival can contact VAC through their website at www.victoriaartsconnectionsociety.org -------------------

The Pacific Festival of the Book, March 23, 24, 2007 will feature a series of integrated interdisciplinary workshops revolving around the literary arts as well as an extensive book sellers and publishers trade show. Part book fair, part literary arts festival this event involves all levels of the publishing, writing and the book loving community to come out and enjoy an innovative series of literary events, performances and an exceptional trade show of BC and Canadian book sellers and publishers. Special events throughout the day will include roving performers from different literary periods inside and outside, author talks and book signings, book making demos, publishers and self-publishing workshops, youth author workshop, children’s storytelling as well as the month long exhibition. Two very exciting workshops being proposed for the program include collaborative workshops between writers, dancers and film makers. A portion of the proceeds from this event will be donated to Project Literacy Victoria. The Victoria Arts Connection is honored to have Victoria’s own Poet Laureate Carla Funk open the festival and participate in the Readers Program as a special guest Poet.

THE TOP 100 NOVELS FROM THE PAST 100 YEARS
1. "Ulysses," James Joyce
2. "The Great Gatsby," F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," James Joyce
4. "Lolita," Vladimir Nabokov
5. "Brave New World," Aldous Huxley
6. "The Sound and the Fury," William Faulkner
7. "Catch-22," Joseph Heller
8. "Darkness at Noon," Arthur Koestler
9. "Sons and Lovers," D.H. Lawrence
10. "The Grapes of Wrath," John Steinbeck
11. "Under the Volcano," Malcolm Lowry
12. "The Way of All Flesh," Samuel Butler
13. "1984," George Orwell
14. "I, Claudius," Robert Graves
15. "To the Lighthouse," Virginia Woolf
16. "An American Tragedy," Theodore Dreiser
17. "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter," Carson McCullers
18. "Slaughterhouse Five," Kurt Vonnegut
19. "Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison
20. "Native Son," Richard Wright
21. "Henderson the Rain King," Saul Bellow
22. "Appointment in Samarra," John O'Hara
23. "U.S.A." (trilogy), John Dos Passos
24. "Winesburg, Ohio," Sherwood Anderson
25. "A Passage to India," E.M. Forster
26. "The Wings of the Dove," Henry James
27. "The Ambassadors," Henry James
28. "Tender Is the Night," F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. "The Studs Lonigan Trilogy," James T. Farrell
30. "The Good Soldier," Ford Maddox Ford
31. "Animal Farm," George Orwell
32. "The Golden Bowl," Henry James
33. "Sister Carrie," Theodore Dreiser
34. "A Handful of Dust," Evelyn Waugh
35. "As I Lay Dying," William Faulkner
36. "All the King's Men," Robert Penn Warren
37. "The Bridge of San Luis Rey," Thornton Wilder
38. "Howards End," E.M. Forster
39. "Go Tell It on the Mountain," James Baldwin
40. "The Heart of the Matter," Graham Greene
41. "Lord of the Flies," William Golding
42. "Deliverance," James Dickey
43. "A Dance to the Music of Time" (series), Anthony Powell
44. "Point Counter Point," Aldous Huxley
45. "The Sun Also Rises," Ernest Hemingway
46. "The Secret Agent," Joseph Conrad
47. "Nostromo," Joseph Conrad
48. "The Rainbow," D.H. Lawrence
49. "Women in Love," D.H. Lawrence
50. "Tropic of Cancer," Henry Miller
51. "The Naked and the Dead," Norman Mailer
52. "Portnoy's Complaint," Philip Roth
53. "Pale Fire," Vladimir Nabokov
54. "Light in August," William Faulkner
55. "On the Road," Jack Kerouac
56. "The Maltese Falcon," Dashiell Hammett
57. "Parade's End," Ford Maddox Ford
58. "The Age of Innocence," Edith Wharton
59. "Zuleika Dobson," Max Beerbohm
60. "The Moviegoer," Walker Percy
61. "Death Comes to the Archbishop," Willa Cather
62. "From Here to Eternity," James Jones
63. "The Wapshot Chronicles," John Cheever
64. "The Catcher in the Rye," J.D. Salinger
65. "A Clockwork Orange," Anthony Burgess
66. "Of Human Bondage," W. Somerset Maugham
67. "Heart of Darkness," Joseph Conrad
68. "Main Street," Sinclair Lewis
69. "The House of Mirth," Edith Wharton
70. "The Alexandria Quartet," Lawrence Durrell
71. "A High Wind in Jamaica," Richard Hughes
72. "A House for Ms. Biswas," V.S. Naipaul
73. "The Day of the Locust," Nathaniel West
74. "A Farewell to Arms," Ernest Hemingway
75. "Scoop," Evelyn Waugh
76. "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," Muriel Spark
77. "Finnegans Wake," James Joyce
78. "Kim," Rudyard Kipling
79. "A Room With a View," E.M. Forster
80. "Brideshead Revisited," Evelyn Waugh
81. "The Adventures of Augie March," Saul Bellow
82. "Angle of Repose," Wallace Stegner
83. "A Bend in the River," V.S. Naipaul
84. "The Death of the Heart," Elizabeth Bowen
85. "Lord Jim," Joseph Conrad
86. "Ragtime," E.L. Doctorow
87. "The Old Wives' Tale," Arnold Bennett
88. "The Call of the Wild," Jack London
89. "Loving," Henry Green
90. "Midnight's Children," Salman Rushdie
91. "Tobacco Road," Erskine Caldwell
92. "Ironweed," William Kennedy
93. "The Magus," John Fowles
94. "Wide Sargasso Sea," Jean Rhys
95. "Under the Net," Iris Murdoch
96. "Sophie's Choice," William Styron
97. "The Sheltering Sky," Paul Bowles
98. "The Postman Always Rings Twice," James M. Cain
99. "The Ginger Man," J.P. Donleavy
100. "The Magnificent Ambersons," Booth Tarkington