Selfie-Stick Aerobics, Crystal Healing, Laughter Therapy and Hacked Kindles: Self Publish Be Happy Takes Over The Tate Modern In London

The madcap geniuses at Self Publish, Be Happy will be taking over the Tate Modern this weekend. A project in the Turbine Hall celebrates the fifth birthday of Self Publish, Be Happy (SBPH) this year for the first Offprint London fair, which coincides with Photo London. By using books to vitalize public interaction, the SPBH Project Space will host numerous events involving exciting contemporary photographers. Visitors can create their own temporary tattoo in photographer Thomas Mailaender’s ‘Fun Tattoo Parlor’. After selecting a photo from the artist’s weird collection of internet images, they can wear it - becoming part of a mobile exhibition. Artist Antony Cairns will be hacking old Kindles bought on eBay and making them into photobooks. Arvida Byström and Maja Malou Lyse will lead a selfie-stick aerobics class, while Japanese artists Daisuke Yokota and Hiroshi Takizawah will print a book using an experimental process that uses wax, cement and iron powder. There will also be some cathartic booksmoking by Melinda Gib- son, crystal healing sessions by Johan Rosenmunthe and laughter therapy by Dominic Hawgood. Finally, SPBH features workshops on risographs and zine-making with Maya Rochat and Col~Late. Offprint London opens tonight at the Tate Modern in London and runs until May 25, 2015. You can also view the events live on the SPBH Youtube Channel.   

Self Publish, Be Naughty

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In March 2011, independent book publishers Self Publish, Be Happy put out a call for "naughty pictures" and in response received over 5000 photographs. A new book, Self Publish, Be Naughty, showcases 122 of these photographs by 75 different artists. The photographs, presented in a continuous flux, offer a powerful and uncompromising exploration of contemporary approaches to the themes of sex, desires and taboos within photography. From the surreal to the mundane, from the allusive to the graphic, the images challenge the tradition of erotic photobooks and their very ghettoised approach to desires.