As the inaugural Friends of ICA resident, 51 Personae / Kali Projects invites visitors to witness stories of books in motion. Think of a table: standing still on its own, yet when we “table,” we act. On the tabletops of the ICA’s Reading Room, we place stories of arrival—how books reach readers, and how meaning unfolds in the spaces between.
These stories come from volunteers who, over the past two to three years, have tabled for 51 Personae / Kali Projects at book fairs and zine festivals across the world, navigating local pressures and challenges. Their improvisational acts create moments of encounter, interpretation, and understanding between books and readers who might otherwise never meet.
Their evolving narratives appear as self-made zines on the tables, alongside objects and creative responses inspired by the act of tabling. The Reading Room will also feature rotating publications from 51 Personae / Kali Projects and curated independent publications from around the world.
Over the course of the residency, visitors are welcome to come at any time during gallery hours to browse the collection on display. Select publications and limited editions will be available for purchase.
From now through August, members of the 51 Personae / Kali Projects community will “table” on occasion, sharing their personal stories and publications while fostering an exchange of knowledge, care, and connection. For specific dates and details, please see below:
March 7 — First Tabling Session
April 3 — Second Tabling Session (with special guests Ketchup Magazine; 15-16:00 sharing, 16:30-17:30 screening of HARADA-san)
April 29 — Third Tabling Session (with special guests Mianmian and Ag; 15-16:00 sharing, 16:00-17:00 screening of Short-Form Capitalism)
May 21 — Fourth Tabling Session
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Please follow us here for more information about the upcoming tabling sessions.
Friends of ICA
Friends of ICA is a mutual aid residency where our friends inhabit the ICA’s Reading Room to share their knowledge and to make community through printed matter.
Until now, our reading room has been a bit lonely. Our modest collection of printed matter has been gathered, presented, and stored for ICA’s artistic research programs. So, we’re inviting our friends who make books, booklets, magazines, newspapers, posters, postcards, dossiers, and other ephemera to share them with us and others.
We want to support our friends, from near and far, who continue to print, publish, and distribute printed matter under increasingly harsh conditions. We also care about printed matter as a medium of knowledge exchange and community making at a time when the internet no longer seems to be free, open, nor safe as a place for knowledge exchange and community making.
Indeed, this residency is a bit of a cheeky inversion of the "friends of" patronage model for our peer institutions, including museums, libraries, and universities. In this sense, Friends of ICA reimagines what it might mean to be “friends of” an institution—proposing a reciprocal, material form of support grounded in shared space, printed matter, and community.
