Not Bound by Time: Book Production in the Seventeenth and Twenty-First Centuries
Wednesday, February 25th, 2015 from 4:30pm-5:30pm
Dalhousie Art Gallery, Dalhousie Arts Centre, 6101 University Avenue
Dr. Stijn Van Rossem
University of Antwerp
Andrew Steeves
Gaspereau Press
Historian Dr. Stijn Van Rossem will begin this lecture by drawing on his research on the organization and operation of the printshop and bookshop of the Verdussen family in Antwerp in the seventeenth century. He will take us inside the Verdussen’s business, the Red Lion, to illustrate how this firm conducted its business over successive generations and through various typographical innovations in response to cultural, economic, and political change. Then, Andrew Steeves, designer and publisher at Gaspereau Press, in Kentville, Nova Scotia, will show how a small literary press of the twenty-first century has more in common with the Verdussens than well-established conventions and practices employed in today’s mainstream publishing trade. Together, Van Rossem and Steeves will demonstrate that innovation in a twenty-first century printing firm draws heavily on historic roots of four centuries earlier.