Taking form, making worlds: cartonera publishers in Latin America

In: William and Bettye Nowlin series in art, history, and culture of the Western Hemisphere

Abstract

"Cartoneras are community-based publishing collectives that make low-cost books out of waste materials in contexts where paperbacks can cost over a month's minimum wage. The first of its kind, Eloísa Cartonera, was born in Buenos Aires in the aftermath of the 2001 economic crisis. As many families lost work, many turned to other ways of supporting their families by picking through trash for objects to recycle, including cardboard. The founding members of Eloísa began to buy cardboard from these cartoneras with the idea of using it to create hand-painted books (typically priced for the middle class and higher in Latin America) at an affordable price. Cartoneras have their own specific aesthetics, much like zines in the US and Europe, while also finding ways to experiment with, and potentially break down, some social markers between and social institutions and systems"--