The fair is first and foremost a large gathering of creative people in action. If they speak against populism and dictators in an attempt to initiate consciousness, then the fair makes sense. If that isn’t there, then it’s just a regular discount book sale and a gallery of various loons
Book fairs are primarily seeking ways to survive as events. In that sense, some try, in various ways, to use more PR activities to reach and motivate more potential participants and visitors. However, for meeting and for the needs of, for example, buyers and sellers, the space of a fair under domes is not essential. Shaping the atmosphere of the fair is the joy of meeting with writers and publishers, as direct conversations are what motivate and compel people from other cities to come to Belgrade and stroll between the stands. Perhaps it is indeed the largest bookshop attended by everyone, or almost everyone, who publishes books and other useful publications. The internet can provide information, but it cannot also provide the sense of belonging to a group of people who continue to be devoted to books, believing that this reality can be changed, but not abolished. Nevertheless, if we speak in terms of numbers and percentages, if we quantify what is happening to print publications – from weekly newspapers to books – it is certain that someone will be able to say that there is no going back to the past, particularly after the experience of the coronavirus pandemic, but rather that there is an intensive development of electronic communications and non-exclusive exchanges of content.
The adaptation of fair events should head in the direction of digitalisation and creation of the virtual connecting of authors, visitors and journalists, which technology now makes possible. Only the sky is the limit in terms of the ways in which exceptional programmes can be made with relatively little funding. By combining the physical presence and video links, animation and the creation of books as a guide to augmented reality provides the opportunity for us to create interesting programmes for fresher and more desirable mise-en-scènes. The Frankfurt Book Fair is among those from which we can learn the most. It provided an excellent example of what can be done even during the pandemic, and actually provided directions to the world of new ways of gathering and functioning, revealing the future of what we’ve called a book and a book fair.
The internet can provide information, but it cannot also provide the sense of belonging to a group of people who continue to be devoted to books, believing that this reality can be changed, but not abolished
Should book fairs represent a way of fleeing the not-so-pleasant present or try to bring awareness to that present? Art is often unjustifiably defined as an escape from reality. When it is in fact the offer of a different reality that refines the existing one. You don’t get far by fleeing. But satisfaction lies in adjusting the existing reality, the feeling that we have done something better for ourselves and others. Good solutions and inspiring gestures have changed habits, created a more felicitous and noble reality in which it is desirable to live. Talented people change the environment in which they find themselves and entice others to follow them.
The Fair is first and foremost a large gathering of creative people in action. If they speak against populism and dictators in an attempt to initiate consciousness, then the fair makes sense, if that isn’t there, then it’s just a regular discount book sale and a gallery of various loons The Fair is first and foremost a large gathering of creative people in action. If their spirit is accentuated there, if their literature and ideas speak there, if they disrupt the public internally and externally with their charisma, by raising attention, if they speak against populism and dictators in an attempt to initiate consciousness, then the fair makes sense. If that isn’t there, then it’s just a regular discount book sale and a gallery of various loons who lease a stand to attract the attention of those who are similar to them. Massiveness doesn’t mean much in and of itself; less is always better. The privilege of the future has always resided in the small.
