A financial crisis swept through Argentina at the turn of the 21st century, leaving devastation in its wake. As unemployment soared to more than 20 percent, over half of the country’s population was estimated to be living below the poverty line.
Desperate to make ends meet, some residents turned to sorting through garbage for reusable materials. They became known as “cardboard people,” or “cartoneros,” and their resilience would inspire a revolution in publishing.
“Some families could not afford to buy books for their children,” said Liladhar R. Pendse, the librarian for Caribbean and Latin American studies collections at UC Berkeley. “So they need to come up with ideas to make books accessible to the masses. Cardboard is going to be thrown out. So let’s use it as a cover for the book.”
The cartonera movement took hold in Buenos Aires in 2003, when local artisans began creating handmade books with striking painted covers. The books were beautiful, affordable, and environmentally friendly. Their creation was also an act of resistance, according to Pendse, because they challenged established power structures in the publishing industry and democratized literature. The cartonera movement has since spread to countries across Latin America and around the globe.
Several of these remarkable cartonera books are on display in an exhibition opening this week at the UC Berkeley Library. From Cartonera to Cordel: Aesthetics of Caribbean and Latin American Book Art runs through August in Doe Library’s Bernice Layne Brown Gallery.
Beyond cartoneras, the show spotlights a variety of handmade artisanal works: cordel chapbooks from Brazil, artists’ books from Cuba, and fine letterpress books from Mexico. Pendse, who curated the exhibit, said the selections celebrate the artistic and literary vibrancy and resilience of the region.
“I also wanted to set free the Library’s distinctive hidden collections,” Pendse said. “Not enough people know that we have these incredible treasures.”
From Cartonera to Cordel: Aesthetics of Caribbean and Latin American Book Art
Where: Doe Library’s Bernice Layne Brown Gallery
When: March 24 through August, with exceptions; the gallery is open the same hours as Doe Library. Check the hours before you go.
Cost: Free
Democracy in action
Among those treasures are unique cordel chapbooks from northeastern Brazil. The term “literatura de cordel,” which translates from Portuguese to “literature on a string,” describes the tradition of selling handmade pamphlets pinned to strings in Brazil’s open-air markets. Visitors to the gallery will see the cordels hanging in a vertical case.
The pamphlets use poetic verse to document cultural traditions, folklore, and international events through the perspectives of their authors. Some also provide valuable public education on topics such as the importance of donating blood. The chapbooks are cheap and portable, making them imminently shareable, according to Pendse.
Graduate students helped select some of the cordels and other items featured in the exhibit. In November, Pendse hosted students from “Media and Modernity,” a graduate seminar in the department of Spanish and Portuguese, at Doe Library. The class focuses mainly on Brazilian media, but also covers media theory from across Latin America, and includes a session on print history and culture.
Nathaniel Wolfson, an assistant professor of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley, described the visit as a kind of “informal curating.” Dozens of books were displayed on classroom tables, and students were asked to weigh in on which items to display and how to organize them.
“People were moving from place to place and sort of figuring out what interested them most, and organically, groups started forming around research interests,” Wolfson recalled. “(Pendse) was super encouraging, which was great, really empowering them to think of themselves as curators.”
Wolfson said that many students were drawn to the cordels, including those that preserve the legacy of historical figures from Brazil.
One, for example, tells the story of folk hero Lampião, a notorious Brazilian outlaw, as he attempts to enter hell. Though fantastical, the work draws on Lampião’s real-life exploits as the leader of a bandit group that operated in northeastern Brazil during the 1920s and 1930s.
Other students were inspired by handmade artists’ books from Cuba that reflected social movements, in particular, a recent wave of feminist thought in Latin America.
Books as acts of resistance
While most of the Cuban artists’ books featured in the exhibit don’t take an overt political position, they are, in fact, born out of a kind of resistance.
The United States’ embargo on Cuba — a set of economic sanctions imposed in 1962 — has resulted in a scarcity of materials needed to create books. Cuban artists have responded by making “homegrown” paper from the natural fibers of products such as bananas, corn, and garlic. The artisans also showcase their ingenuity by using repurposed materials to embellish the books, including cans, coins, string, and seashells.
The Library has more than 60 handmade books from Cuban artisans representing three innovative publishing houses: Ediciones Vigía, Ediciones El Fortín, and Cuadernos Papiro.
Wolfson, who often brings his classes to the Library, said that students benefit from in-person interaction with the books.
“They have a kind of material specificity to them that is really hard to appreciate, at least to the same degree, unless you’re able to look at the book, feel the book, flip through the book,” he said. “A lot of the covers of the books are artisanally produced, highly unique, and often displaying collages. Sometimes they have unconventional materials glued on them. There is something special in the tactile experience of handling the books, which is how they’re intended to be used.”
Pendse began growing the Library’s collection of handmade artisanal books from Latin America in 2018, when he was given responsibility for materials from that region. His role, he noted, is only one part of a collaborative enterprise undertaken by many Library colleagues, with the goal of making the books available to students and faculty members.
Wolfson, who hailed Pendse as a great collaborator, said that being able to access the books has been essential in his research and in that of his graduate students. These types of works can be difficult to borrow from other libraries, such as through interlibrary lending, and few are digitized. He also expressed his hope that UC Berkeley would continue to invest in Latin American, and especially Brazilian, materials.
For his part, Pendse sees the books — and the exhibit as a whole — as reflective of the Library’s commitment to cherishing the great diversity of the world. He hopes visitors relish the opportunity to experience more of the rich artistic and cultural traditions of Latin America.
“As librarians, we are mediators of information, and we try to meet students’ information needs,” he said. “But people have spiritual and aesthetic needs, too. Their souls need to see some beautiful objects.”
Discover the Library’s more than 600 cartonera books in UC Library Search by using the phrase “Latin American Cartonera Collection.”