Date & Time: Saturday, December 13, 2025 13:45-14:30 (Reception opens at 13:30)
Venue: Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo / EVENT SPACE (1F / next to the museum shop)
Admission: Free (a TABF admission ticket valid on the day of the event is required)

Language: English, Japanese [Interpreter: Kenichi Eguchi]

 

Speakers: Dafne Boggeri (artist, founder of Sprint) × Alien (photographer, a member of Sprint)

 

As part of the Guest Country program, OUT OF THE GRID: Italian Zine 1978–2006 is presented at TABF, drawn from the eponymous publication. The exhibition offers a critical selection of Italian zines produced between 1978 and 2006, spanning what can be symbolically defined as the “post-movement and pre-internet 3.0” era. This research maps a landscape of independent expression and self-publishing across Italy, tracing subtle yet radical transformations in language, form, and urgency over nearly three decades. These zines capture shifts not only in technology but also in how communities articulated dissent, desire, and identity through print, often anticipating the need to expand into new media.
At TABF, a selection from this rare archive is curated by artist Dafne Boggeri together with SPRINT – Independent Publishers and Artists’ Books Salon, a Milan-based platform she founded in 2013 dedicated to experimental publishing. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with Alien, photographer, member of TOMBOYS DON’T CRY, and part of SPRINT.
In this talk, Boggeri and Alien will discuss the making of OUT OF THE GRID: Italian Zine 1978–2006, the curatorial process, and the broader context of Italy’s independent publishing scene. They will also share insights into the diverse activities of SPRINT, a platform fostering experimental publishing and critical exchange.

 

Event reservation: https://peatix.com/event/4669049/view
(You will be redirected to an external site)
*As seating is limited, we recommend making a reservation in advance.
*On-site registration will be available on the day of the event, subject to seat availability.

 

 

(Left to right) Alien, Dafne Boggeri

 

Dafne Boggeri
Dafne Boggeri is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice unfolds across publishing, performance, and collaborative forms of production. Her work explores the politics of language, identity, and spatial relations, considering the margin, the error, and the peripheral as generative zones of awareness. Since 2013, she has curated SPRINT, a non-profit, artist-led platform and art book fair devoted to experimental publishing and critical thought, fostering editorial research, workshops, and archival projects that connect artists, publishers, and readers internationally.
In the 2000s, Boggeri co-founded the queer collectives Pornflakes Queer Crew and later TOMBOYS DON’T CRY, both dedicated to post-identity and transfeminist cultural practices. Her editorial and artistic work includes Out of the Grid. Italian Zine 1978–2006 (Les presses du réel, 2023), a seminal study on Italian self-publishing, and the ongoing research project Hard Copy Soft Touch, which maps queer archival architectures worldwide and will culminate in a publication in 2027.

 

Alien　
Alien is a photographer, member of TOMBOYS DON’T CRY and part of SPRINT. Her research focuses on identity, queerness and everyday life, with an ongoing body of work that reflects on the fluid nature of documentary vs fiction, unpacking the subjective perspective of representation and objecthood. She has self-published her first book BODYBUILDERS 01 in 2022 on the new alternative drag scene in the UK and is currently working on the second chapter in the Americas.