Kaleidoscopic No. 27: Vivian Sming
On lines of inquiry as a book publisher..
Leonardo Bravo :
Greetings! Today I'm talking with Vivian Sming from Sming Sming Books. Vivian, it's such a treat to be in conversation as I've been following your practice and I've been so drawn to it because of the platform that you have in publishing and also working as a designer, as an artist, as an educator, and in very expansive ways, which is the kind of world that I love to exist in as well. I'm calling you from Brooklyn and you are in the Bay Area.
Vivian Sming :
Thank you so much. I've also been meaning to talk to you for a long time, so I'm glad we have this excuse to connect!
Leonardo Bravo :
Great. So if we can start with some general framing about Sming Sming Books, your reason for starting it, and highlighting some recent projects.
Vivian Sming :
I started Sming Sming Books in 2017 and I always say that I started on accident or in a very impromptu way. I don't have a formal background in printmaking, design, or in bookmaking, or any of that <laugh>! I started publishing with having some editorial experience and knowing some preliminary design. I'm a one-person publishing studio and since then, I have published around 50 books now. I work one-on-one with artists basically from scratch. Every book is designed with the artists' ideas at the forefront. So everything looks a little bit different and it is really based on those ideas we come to, such as design, material, printing choices, and edition size. Generally the edition sizes have been anywhere from a hundred books to a thousand books.
Leonardo Bravo :
It's pretty incredible to hear that you started out with such little formal background and now to look at your output and the portfolio of books that you have available with such extensive design choices. It's super ambitious and it seems like there is a strong ethos that drives your practice. Does that inform the work or how you find the artists that you want to work with?
Vivian Sming :
People always ask me, “How do you decide what to publish?” The way that I've been answering that nowadays is that there are a lot of different inquiries that I have in my head about all kinds of things—what it means to be human, questions around cultural equity, representation, these kinds of larger ideas. Publishing and also working with artists, has been a way to… maybe not resolving, but testing those questions and then going to the next question from that. In terms of the books that I publish, it is a very personal decision-making and there are many different threads that I'm trying to resolve in my head. Trough publishing, I'm able to get a little bit further with that.
Leonardo Bravo :
That's really interesting as a line of inquiry for the work. I had started a project over many years ago in LA, Big City Forum, where I worked with many designers and architects and planners and people that were thinking around the built environment and how we inhabit and we experience the built environment and our sense of space. But as I saw the project evolve from where it started as a series of conversations, it became a series of connective threads and lines of inquiry that almost became rhizomatic. One thing leading to another and then to another.
Vivian Sming :
As an artist, there's a lot of pressure to answer those questions. In working with other people it frees up that space to start asking those questions. Even if I wouldn't take the same visual strategy that another artist would, I can still test it out and see where it goes—almost like trying the hat on and seeing, okay, where does this visual strategy end up? Like, what conversations does it spark? And then it doesn't put that pressure for myself as in my personal practice, to then try to answer those questions, which can sometimes stall the production of art. I think that’s the case for a lot of artists as well.
Leonardo Bravo :
Let's talk a little bit about a couple of individual projects or some that you want to use as examples.
Vivian Sming :
The most recent book is by Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle, The Evanesced, and it's a tarot deck. I would say it's an artist book in the form of a tarot deck that Kenyatta is using it to bring attention to missing Black womxn in this country. Having it as a deck allows readers or users to then activate and use the work as restorative practice. There’s also a guidebook. That's the one I'm most excited by because it just came out.
I recently worked with an artist, Heesoo Kwon on a project called Leymusoom Giftshop. We started working on artist book, and she had this opportunity to create an installation at YBCA, so we folded the two together. The installation is in the form of a religious giftshop. Heesoo has created a feminist autobiographical religion called Leymusoom. The giftshop contains all these different items: postcards, “prayer books,” bookmarks, and more. The book form has all these different pieces, but then there's an installation version that you can experience in person.
Initially when I was starting to make books, it was very much about how existing artwork or exhibitions could be retained in the book form. I thought about how the spirit of the artwork could still be captured and live on through the book form—not in a one-to-one representational way, but more of a performative way, where the book might perform something different than the exhibition, but still be in conversation with the exhibition. Right now, though, I’ve been really thinking about ways that the book can spark those exhibitions or be the initial form that then leads to other forms of art.
Leonardo Bravo :
The book by Keko Jackson, Restored/Access also caught my eye. I found it so compelling and poetic, the way that it's put together.
Vivian Sming :
Keko Jackson is an LA-based artist who had found this archive belonging to his uncle, who's a California State Park ranger, on the town of Allensworth, which was a Black-owned and self-governed town back in the 1900s. It's near Bakersfield. Keko is really thinking about this idea of self-governance, Black utopia, and examples of that, including the trials and the failure. The town declined due to systemic reasons, but that idea of what it could mean to have self-governance and a Black-owned town persists. The book pairs contemporary recent photographs with the archival photographs. There's this way that they are interspersed through color and material. The archival images interrupt the present, and there's this way that it's not necessarily possible to see one fully without seeing the other.
Leonardo Bravo :
I saw that the way you had designed the pages had been also exhibited. I mean, the book itself had been exhibited as a core part of an exhibition.
Vivian Sming :
Yeah, when Keko went to exhibit the work, it followed a similar visual strategy in terms of using the same type of paper and placement, of course at a different scale. Every single book has this feeling, like it needs to spark critical discourse. I often look for projects that can inspire further inquiry, further writing, further research, and conversations. So it doesn't just end at the book form, but it continues on through programming for example, or through writing.
Leonardo Bravo :
You recently had a project here in New York at the Center for Book Arts?
Vivian Sming :
Yeah, at the Center for Book Arts. It just closed, but it was a show of the last six years of Sming Sming Books.
Leonardo Bravo :
How did it feel to put it all together and have this moment to take stock and reflect or see the arc of the project?
Vivian Sming :
There's some books in there that I was like, I haven't seen this in a while <laugh>, but it is exciting. I also used the opportunity to try to trace where the books have gone in terms of where they have been cited, like in dissertations and essays, and the libraries that they've been ended up at. It has been exciting to kind of see the whole scope of it, but I don't think done yet, <laugh>. Sometimes I think the artwork that I'm trying to make, which might take my entire life, is an actual library where every single book in there is something I produced.
Leonardo Bravo :
That feels almost encyclopedic in scope, a library of life.
Vivian Sming :
What's exciting is now that because there are these number of books, I am able to start tracing those lines of inquiry a little bit more. I can better point to okay, this is the thread. Not all of them are fully obvious or fleshed out yet but I think some inquiry lines are starting to appear.
Leonardo Bravo :
My sense would be also when looking at this body of work that it's so much about building community, I mean, not just going from project to project, but the totality of this kind of broader canvas of community that you have helped foster through Sming Sming Books.
Vivian Sming :
I mean, to be honest, I had started publishing after I moved back to the Bay Area and I am in a suburb where I'm quite isolated from most other artists or people, friends. Publishing was this way to adapt to the environment where I could still kind of retain connection and conversations. I generally work better one-on-one with folks in terms of having an extended conversation or sitting with the work for a while. The aspect of community wasn't necessarily something I was originally thinking about at the forefront when I started, but of course, through the process, through art book fairs, for instance, I’m connecting to people not only here but all over the world.
Vivian Sming :
I love art book fairs because I think of them as “casual pedagogical experiences.” The premise is to sell books but actually what people are doing is really learning… learning about an artist's practice and finding out techniques and connecting—oftentimes directly—to makers. It is this learning environment that has the disguise of a fair.
Leonardo Bravo :
One of my interviews was with Adriana Monsalve from Homie House Press.
Vivian Sming :
Yaaay!
Leonardo Bravo :
Yeah, and in such compelling ways she talked about the sense that art book fairs were like not only a lifeline, but also such a vibrant sense of community and connectivity in this space.
Vivian Sming :
Yeah. It's like the internet done right! We connect with each other and find each other through the internet, and people find us through the internet, but then we actually meet up in person. It then makes that internet experience less disconnected or dissociative because you do feel like, oh, I met this person before. Things start to feel like a little smaller in terms of the community.
Leonardo Bravo :
The other aspect that comes to the foreground is this notion of the archive and how important in terms of mining or investigating an archive, not only as a factual repository but also as a site for memory, as a site to bring forth or excavate displaced memories, erased cultures at times, and an erased kind of identity. Does that play into the work that you do with artists?
Vivian Sming :
Absolutely. Keko Jackson's Restored/Access is an example. In a program that Keko had with Lava Thomas, they were talking about these Black histories that are there, and that there are historians who are doing the research, but even as born-and-raised Californians, we were unaware of Allensworth. These histories are not taught in schools, and people are just now starting to talk about it. Art can really be that point of access where it's not just the factual way of describing something that has happened in the past, but presenting a history in a way that makes somebody curious about it.
Vivian Sming :
Had I just read about Allensworth I don't know that I would be as interested. It's compelling, but the language that is often used in conveying history is sometimes not as accessible as the visual language. There's a way that books are just so immediate. I always think about how the majority of people on this planet actually have some understanding of what a book is, but not necessarily know how to navigate a gallery space or understand academic language. It really is this form that has this immediacy.
Leonardo Bravo :
You work intersects so much as an artist, designer, publisher, educator. What were some of your own inspirations coming up either through upbringing, family education, mentors, or, you know, as we're speaking about lines of inquiry?
Vivian Sming :
That's a hard one to summarize, <laugh>. I did grow up in the Bay Area, in Silicon Valley, and on the side of Silicon Valley where there’s a large community of immigrants who are providing the labor force for the tech industries. A lot of my life—and my being—has been and is about pushing back against this tech industry, that's this homogeneity that's just been pushed down everyone's throats. I especially felt that growing up. So as a kid, I was always looking for something different. That's what made me gravitate towards art.
Vivian Sming :
I had gone to UCLA for undergrad and the conversations there were really about institutional critique. There were folks like Barbara Kruger, Andrea Fraser, and Cathy Opie teaching there, but we weren't really given a path, or an alternative to the institution. It was very much like, bite the hand that feeds you <laugh>. When I did start publishing, it started to answer a lot of these questions that I had and provide this alternative model starting to form the possibilities of that. So I think it's that combination of being in a place of discomfort that pushes you towards wanting something different.
Vivian Sming :
I like just going for it, just trying. The going for it also comes from being raised on the internet. I learned a lot of skills that I still use now, like coding my own websites at age 12, or clicking around on my pirated version of Photoshop. A lot of that early internet spirit of play, possibility, and experimentation, and the democratization of knowledge and access to information really influenced me.
Leonardo Bravo :
I live close to the Brooklyn Museum and I went to see their Copy Machine Manifesto exhibition recently which is an incredibly comprehensive show about artists who’ve made zines. It was great because I came up in this generation of the eighties and nineties, and so much of our stuff was really what was happening in those spaces of various subcultures, punk and queer spaces. So just to see all that ephemera from that time, which I was like, oh my God, I think I was there or I was in very close proximity to some of those moments. And at the time, these flyers and zines were just passing through and then all of a sudden they're in the institution. They become sort of deified and recognized, which is amazing. It's beautiful. But it's a little bit of what you're talking about this spirit of open possibility that you have at the beginning that then becomes something, I don't know maybe the platform for what comes next.
Vivian Sming :
Yeah. I would say, in terms of like Xerox and zines for instance, a lot the publishing happening now is possible because of technological advancement. On the one hand, it's using those tools and embracing the tools, but on the other hand, not embracing the monetization and the industry that comes with that. It's an interesting tension, I think.
Leonardo Bravo :
It's fascinating because as you're describing art book fairs, this sense of creating an alternate reality that you can create. Shaping a space where you have the access to the tools of distribution and able to create at alternate scales to that linear narrative that it has to be shaped in just a market based way.
Vivian Sming :
Right, and that's really empowering. I do think that we're in a moment that feels like there's a surge in DIY publishing, self-publishing, and community-run publishing. Part of it is because it just feels extremely empowering to produce knowledge, keep histories, and share resources without relying on a market-driven aspect or the institution to make those decisions.
Leonardo Bravo :
I was sharing before that I'm now working at MoMA where I oversee public engagement programs there. You also have a more institutional position, at Stanford at the Cantor Arts Center. So I wanted to get your take on, I don't know if it's a tension, but maybe the ability to work within the institution. You were just talking about the sense of institutional critique, but also working within the institution and outside of that. So how do you allow for that dance to happen?
Vivian Sming :
Right now I'm very interested in finding out what the limits are of working within an institution. Sometimes I'm like, am I just being delusional here? <laugh> In terms of working within arts institutions though, it's still very much work I enjoy. I love working with artists, so any opportunity I can get to do that, I'll take it. With institutions, there are things that are possible with more resources. The budgets that museums work with for a book looks very different from the budgets that independent publishers are working with—significantly different. So it's a way of working, like, okay, what can I do with resources and also what can I do when I work with other people that is beyond myself?
Vivian Sming :
With publishing, it’s what can I do with just myself? What can I create on my own? Both have valuable lessons to learn from. Prior to joining Cantor I was at 826 Valencia, where we published 30 books a year because every student we worked with—7,000 students—became a published author by the end of that program. That kind of scale would've been impossible for me to do on my own. Similarly in terms of the museum, to have a space and an audience already built in is very different from working small. At the same time, museums and institutions work very slowly and that's the part that compels me to still work independently because I can't wait <laugh>, I can't wait for the book. I can't rely on the institution and the institution's timeline to produce the knowledge I need and support the artists that I wanna support. So I'm just gonna go ahead and do that, even if it's on a very small scale.
Leonardo Bravo :
This is very much why I like doing this interview project. It offers a kind of very nimble and independent space for me to test out ideas, to be in conversation with practitioners who I'm interested in without going through the internal processes that would be required within an institution.
Vivian Sming :
Yeah. Another part of it for me is working on my own. I get to set the type of relationship I want with authors or artists. I get to set the ethics of how I approach working with people. I've created a mutual agreement form, for instance, and it's not only that artists own the copyright, but it states very clearly what I can do, what I can offer, and things I just can't do because I'm just one person, <laugh>. But I try to be very upfront about that. Another thing is timelines. I don't set deadlines for people. Within an institution, there's always this false sense of urgency that's created when it comes to art, creating artwork, whatever it is, to support the institutional programming. But then when it comes to paying people, it's always so slow, you know?
With my independent projects I get to set those rules or work in a way that I feel is equitable. It's not perfect all the time but as a result, every project has been really easy in terms of the relationships and the process and the back-and-forth. Very rarely are there ever conflicts that normally come up all the time <laugh> within an institutional setting.
Leonardo Bravo :
Vivian what is inspiring you right now and what are you looking forward to next?
Vivian Sming :
As an artist, I go where the energy goes, or where the energy takes me. This last year I had the opportunity to work with the San Francisco Center for the Book on creating what was called the Small Plates Edition—a small four-by-four book. That was great because I don't have a background in printmaking. I also did a papermaking residency last year which was just fun to learn, so I'm kind of learning backwards almost—the history of these processes and the tools for bookmaking.
In terms of projects, I always have a huge backlog of books that I'm working on. It's hard for me to focus in on that and give an actual tangible response to what I'm looking forward to next. There's still things I feel I haven't seen or explored or considered. I'm in a place where I'm just trying to be open to new ideas and new approaches and to publishing as well.
Leonardo Bravo :
And are there specific art book fairs that you participate in? Or is it sort of like whatever seems interesting during that year?
Vivian Sming :
Participating in art book fairs does get a little more challenging when you're working full-time because my vacation days are used to table fairs that are physically grueling. This year, I don't think I'll participate in as many. I've been mostly trying to stay local or within California, although I love going out to the New York Art Book Fair. I can’t physically do it this year though!
Leonardo Bravo :
This has been so great. So thank you so much. I really hope that this is an opportunity to be part of an ongoing conversation. Let's definitely be in touch if you come to New York.
Vivian Sming :
One last thing I should also say, before I started publishing I wanted to initially create public programs. I wanted to have an artist-run space where there were interdisciplinary conversations. With public programming, the magic gets lost online when you record it. It's very hard to capture the energy that's in the room on a recording. It just flattens it. Books were actually a way to think about the longevity of and energy of coming together in really productive conversations. So through the book it can live on a little bit longer than with just the one-offs.
Leonardo Bravo :
It's interesting you're bringing that up because I've always found there's a magic and there's an energy that's contained, that's brought together when something goes really well in terms of bringing people together. Having either an incredible conversation, presentation and engagement that doesn't transfer to a digital capture. My feeling was always about the importance of what happens in that space and in that present moment that is so unique. And I've also had this dream, and it's not so much just public programs, but what does it mean to create a unique small space where different intimate experiences happen that that might include listening and seeing, but also includes slowing things down and of reflection. So it's where small, unique things might happen.
Vivian Sming :
Oh, that's so cool.
Leonardo Bravo :
It’s similar I think to the way you were describing books in a way — there's something about the way you engage with artists while creating something that is beautiful and unique and it almost opens up a journey. For all involved.
Thank you again Vivian. This has been delightful.
Vivian Sming :
Thank you!
For more information:
IG: @smingsmingbooks
absolutely!!
so glad we finally got to connect!! 🙇🏻♀️✨❤️