Setting up

Le OFF is an alternative book fair. A group of small presses created it last year ago when they felt that they were swamped by larger publishers at the main French-language book fair in Brussels. It is held in three different venues: in the Maison des Cultures, where we are, there are book stands, workshops for kids, poetry performances, a photography exhibition and concerts as well as infusoria. The organiser of the performances, Damien Spleeters, asked Krikri to perform and also offered us a space to do ‘something else’ of our choice. I’d been wanting to do something with women’s vispo for several months, so Le Off seemed like a good opportunity. Since Krikri mainly works in Flanders (the Dutch-language area of Belgium), it made a change to work with a French-language organisation.

The building is a former school that is now a community arts centre. So there is a lot to fit into one place, and the room we were allocated was … uh … not the world’s best-suited to an art exhibition. The venue in Ghent is completely different, as you will see next month. In the meantime, for your Schadenfreude-filled pleasure, here are some pictures of how it looked when I went to visit in January…



I'm inordinately proud of the pun "eyesaws" ...

Gratuitous pic of me, Eduard Escoffet (Catalan poet), Jelle Meander (il capo di tutti Krikri) and Damien Spleeters (who organised the poetry performances for Le OFF)