With the support of
The British Council
Institut Français de Grèce

With the kind collaboration of
The Benaki Museum

Radio Athènes is supported by 
Outset. Contemporary Art Fund (Greece)

As part of 
Athens World Book Capital 2018

What does Paraguay stand for?

Thomas Boutoux and Joachim Hamou, two of the members of the Paris-based cooperative publishing house Paraguay, go out on the stage conceived by Etienne Descloux at Radio Athènes to recount the trials and tribulations of an art imprint that was created in 2008. 

« Ten years ago, starting une maison d’édition, independent, self-willed, principled, small in scale, collectively-run, etc. made a lot of sense. There was a terrain; there was a logic, and this is still all very clear to us. But why we called it Paraguay isn’t as clear. It was never that clear. Or, it’s only very recently that it became clear to us. What has been unclear before? Why is it just now becoming clear? What’s happened? Most of all — what now? What we will do, on the occasion of A Book Affair, if you like it Helena, is maybe to talk less about our affair with books than about our affair with Paraguay itself. »

Thomas Boutoux is a Paris-based writer, curator and publisher. He is a founding member of several collective-run small scale organizations in Paris: the imprint Metronome Press; the art space castillo/corrales; the bookstore Section 7 Books, and the most recent one, the publishing cooperative Paraguay. As a writer, Boutoux has a long-standing practice of close collaboration with visual artists on artists books, scripts for films, plays for the radio or the stage, songs and live events. He’s currently producing a new play co-authored with Guillaume Leblon for Front International, Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art. He teaches social and contemporary art theory in the MA program of the School of Fine Arts, Bordeaux. In 2017, he co-organized with Helena Papadopoulos the long term project All: Collected Voices” a Goethe-Institut and Radio Athènes collaboration.

Joachim Hamou is an artist, who works in multiple media (film, theatre and performances) and produces public events in collaboration with several community organizations. His collaborative art projects and films actively engage people in recognizing, understanding and participating in problem solving related to complex social issues. His latest film UIP 27 is a drama-documentary set in the year 2027 where a
a possible future scenario for Israel and Palestine is imagined. He is currently developing the feature film called “Colonie” which is being produced by Barberousse films. Born in France, growing up in Paris and Stockholm within a Moroccan and Swedish family, he was based for a long period in Copenhagen where he created many independent institutions, such as TV-TV, Rio Bravo, Trampoline House. He currently lives between London and Paris, where he is a member of the publishing cooperative Paraguay. (http://www.hamou.artcodeinc.com/)

Paraguay is a publishing cooperative based in Paris. It has published books and several periodicals since 2007, first functioning as the house imprint of the project space castillo/corrales, and since 2015 as an autonomous non-profit organization, which develops a model of publishing that comprises live events, talks, workshops, exhibitions and books. Paraguay associates a dozen of writers, artists, curators, and graphic designers from different generations and has its offices in the artist-run space and studios DOC in Paris 19th.
(http://www.paraguaypress.com)

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