DABF26 Curator's Talk: Unshelving

Bookings open 20 October alongside wider DABF26 programme announcement.

Why do artists and writers shelve or abandon particular projects – books, artworks, ideas? What does this tell us about how artists and writers work? What does it tell us about the systems in which they work, the expectations placed upon them, the kinds of work considered viable, valuable, worthwhile? What does it mean to think about failure in an artistic practice? And what happens when an artist revisits, resurrects, unshelves something they’d previously abandoned?

For this event, writer Erica Van Horn and artist Suzanne Walsh have been invited to present and talk about works they’ve previously shelved, abandoned, cannibalised, lost, forgotten, or reconfigured. Hosted by Nathan O’Donnell and Susan Tomaselli, 'Unshelving' responds to the theme of the Colophon, reflecting on the politics of visibility and the ways that writers and artists are expected to name and define their work.

'Unshelving' revisits a previous event, 'Shelving', presented by Nathan O’Donnell and Susan Tomaselli, as the concluding outcome of their joint artist-in-residence programmes at Maynooth University and Kildare Arts Office in 2021. This event, and residency, served as an important incubation period for the thematic of this year’s Dublin Art Book Fair.

Susan Tomaselli is a writer of creative non-fiction, and publisher and editor of Gorse journal, a print publication which has been described as combining assured editorial judgement with startling original content. She was writer-in-residence of Maynooth University 2020-21.

Erica Van Horn, American artist, writer, and daughter of a librarian, lives a life full of books. Resident in Tipperary, together with Simon Cutts she works on the publications and projects of Coracle, a small publishing press. Recent publications include: We Still Have the Telephone (Les Fugitives, 2022), Of Lichen and Moss with Kate Van Houten (Coracle 2022), and Walking the Portes, with Simon Cutts (Coracle 2025). Her online journal somewordsforlivinglocally.com has been the source of several books.

Suzanne Walsh/Zan Breathnach is a writer and artist who works with performance, text, and audio, mainly. They write creative non-fiction, poetry and commissioned texts for the artworld. Their practice moves between the art, literary, and experimental music world, often focusing on the nonhuman world, and ideas around consensus reality.

Dublin Art Book Fair (3–13 December 2026) is a centre for contemporary artist books offering a wide selection of artist publications and titles from creative, small and independent publishers, both Irish or international, to browse or buy. In conjunction with the Fair, DABF presents an programme of book launches, publishers talks, and workshops, offering ways to engage and gain insight into contemporary independent and arts publishing.

Dublin Art Book Fair 2026 is generously sponsored by our longstanding partner Henry J Lyons and supported by Dublin UNESCO City of Literature.