SPRINT
Art Book Fair Spin-Off

May 4 and 5, 2024
Binario 3 | OGR Torino

Free Entrance
Saturday, May 4, H 11 am - 8 pm
Sunday, May 5, H 10 am - 8 pm

BODYBUILDERS
a transmedia exhibition by photographer Alien
curated by SPRINT

OPENING | May 02, H 7 - 10 pm
May 3 – 5, 2024
Binario 3 | OGR Torino

Free Entrance
Friday, May 3, H 10 - 00 am
Saturday, May 4, H 11 am - 8 pm
Sunday, May 5, H 10 am - 8 pm

Thanks to the fruitful collaboration between EXPOSED and SPRINT Milano, the SPRINT Art Book Fair Spin-Off, exclusively dedicated to independent publishing and artists' books, will be held in Binario 3 of OGR Torino on May 2, 4 and 5, 2024. This event promises an engaging showcase of over 40 local and international publishers, spotlighting some of the most cutting-edge contemporary research in the field.

This event will present the project A Guide on Gardening by Rubén Juan Montesinos (Handshake, Valencia), winner of the SURPRIZE - Supporting Publishing Practices - award promoted by EXPOSED for the SPRINT Milano Art Book Fair 2023.

A limited series of free posters, produced in collaboration with Press Press and photographer Cesare Gualdoni, will be distributed during the event. These posters recall the experience of the Lotta Continua newspaper in Bologna in the 1970s and the experimental art space VIDICON in Milan in the early 1980s.

Also showcased at Binario 3 is the transmedia exhibition BODYBUILDERS by photographer Alien, curated by SPRINT for EXPOSED, an ongoing mapping of the emerging drag and club kid scene across various geographical areas.

The project stems from Italian photographer Alien's desire to document the new Drag and Club Kid alternative scene in different parts of the world. This vibrant community, constantly evolving and challenging to encapsulate, is being meticulously chronicled in a debut volume focused on the United Kingdom, followed by a second publication covering the Americas, spanning from South to North, currently in production.

This project is a delicate endeavor of encounter and observation on a niche practice within the queer community, which manifests as a performative and somewhat ritualistic experience, a daily expression of one's self or alter ego shared only in digital form. Masks, prosthetics, makeup, and contorted postures redefine physiognomy, transforming the body's perception offer a glimpse into a fantastical human landscape. These elements collectively possess a visionary essence, shedding light on existences often grappling for recognition within societal norms.

As Helen Hester, professor of Gender, Technology and Cultural Politics at the University of West London and author of the Xenopheminist manifesto, writes in the introduction to the first volume BODYBUILDERS “Each person photographed here has to some extent built themselves, channeling not only personal aesthetics, cultural reference points and intellectual ideas, but also unconscious forces, the unknowable within us that necessarily finds expression in all our words, actions, thoughts and behaviors.”

SPRINT Art Book Fair Spin-Off and BODYBUILDERS are initiatives within the program of EXPOSED. Torino Foto Festival.