AbeX

Artists’ books and experimental poetry are at the heart of the interdisciplinary EU project AbeX. Anthologies of Cooperation: Encounters in/through Artists’ Books and Experimental Poetry, which launched in January 2025. By the end of 2026, the partnership—comprising two museums (MAK Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Bucharest), an art and media university (Singidunum University, Belgrade) and a Romanian NGO (kultura natura pARTicip) has set itself the goal of presenting the distinctive features of these two multifaceted, constantly overlapping genres in a way that captures the public’s attention and promoting them through collaborations with young creatives.

Through various academic and participatory activities, the art book and experimental poetry are to be brought out of their niche existence and made accessible to a wider public. The aim is to appeal not only to the interested specialist community but also to new target groups, thereby diversifying the audience. Academic activities planned for the project, such as a series of six lectures, the publication of a special issue of the specialist journal AM Journal, and an international symposium in Bucharest, are being developed collaboratively. In September 2025, an exhibition with an accompanying publication on the theme of contemporary artist’s books opened at the MAK.

To promote young talent, the project is organising a series of interactive workshops as well as a summer and a winter school, to which young emerging artists from all three partner countries (Austria, Romania, Serbia) are invited to collaborate on a chapbook and a pop-up exhibition, which will be on display in Vienna and Bucharest. The experiences and results gathered in the workshops will be incorporated into the development of two toolkits. All activities promote cross-border institutional exchange, academic networking and the establishment of creative networks.