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T3 Book Marché ｜ Books Travel Between Us
T3 Marché 2026 Information
T3 BOOK MARCHÉ｜OPEN CALL
We are pleased to announce that T3 BOOK MARCHÉ will return this year.
Taking place on October 17–18, 2026, T3 BOOK MARCHÉ is a two-day book fair dedicated to photobooks and artist publications. As a place where makers and readers meet directly, it brings together photobooks and independent publications from across Asia.
Held alongside T3 PHOTO ASIA, the fair creates a space where different perspectives on photography coexist—critique and market, institutions and individuals, exhibitions and publishing, intimacy and distance.
Applications are now open!
We welcome submissions from artists, photographers, publishers, editors, designers, collectives, bookstores, and platforms. In addition to completed photobooks and artist books, we also encourage applications featuring zines, archival publications, experimental printed matter, and projects exploring new formats and modes of distribution.
Application Deadline｜July 31, 2026
＜Event Information＞
Dates｜October 17 (Sat) – October 18 (Sun), 2026
Time｜11:00–19:00 (TBC)
Venue｜TOFROM YAESU TOWER 1F
Application Guidelines｜Click the Link and please access the application form via the guidelines.
Part 1
Introduction
Introduction
Jin Qiuyu：
Hello everyone! Let's start with short self-introductions.
Zhen Shi：
Hello, everyone. I'm the founder and director of La Maison de Z, a publishing house established in Paris in 2015. Our approach is particular: we work through long-term programs centered on curatorial themes. In 2018, we began publishing our own program, and from 2018 to 2024, it can be summed up under the theme of contemporary China. That's why there are so many Chinese authors in our catalog and on our website. I'm originally Chinese myself, and I immigrated to France at quite a young age, at eighteen.
Over the years, I found that there seems to be an invisible wall between Chinese artists and the European art scene. So I started this program, now nearly ten years in, to showcase Chinese contemporary artists working with lens-based media, including photography, still and moving images, and sometimes conceptual and performance art, from emerging artists three to five years out of school to those in mid-career.
From 2024, we pivoted the theme toward migration and immigration. Through the contemporary China program, I learned that the Chinese community is probably one of the earliest and largest groups to have migrated around the world. I began doing my own research on this from both anthropological and sociological perspectives, trying to map out the subject more broadly. In 2025, we published the first book under this new theme, by a Chinese-American artist, Rachael Liu. We're expanding the theme this year, and it's still very much in development.
Remember Me Like This, Rachel M. Liu, La Maison de Z, 2025
Nour Salamé：
Hello, my name is Nour Salamé. I'm the founder and CEO of Kaph Books, a publishing house specializing in high-quality art books from the Arab world. We cover topics such as art, exhibitions, photography, architecture, design, and cinema. In the span of ten years, we've become the leading publisher from the region, and we distribute internationally. Our books are mostly bilingual, English or French, alongside Arabic.
Kaph Books Website: www.kaphbooks.com
Withit Chanthamarit：
Hi, my name is Withit, from Bangkok, Thailand. I'm the owner of Vacilando Bookshop, which presents photobooks and artist books from around the world to people in Bangkok and Southeast Asia.
I started the bookshop around ten years ago, at first online-only, because in 2017 there were no physical bookshops in Thailand specializing in photobooks from abroad. I started out as a photographer, and a lot of my friends were interested in photobooks, but at the time we couldn't afford to buy many, and there were no bookshops presenting them. So, I began picking up secondhand books from secondhand bookshops and sharing them with friends. Then, as selling things on Instagram took off in Southeast Asia, I started posting photobooks there. Customers appeared, friends became interested, and I gradually built up a customer base and a community. From there, I worked toward having a physical space; it was quite difficult and took time, but eventually it happened.
Next year we'll turn ten. Sadly, we're not ready to publish any books yet. We focus more on bringing books and artists in and making events happen. Honestly, it's hard to make a living on books alone here in Bangkok.
Vacilando Bookshop
Part2
T3 Book Marché Tokyo：Books as Encounters
T3 Book Marché Tokyo：Books as Encounters
Jin Qiuyu：
Thank you. There's a strong reason I brought the three of you together, and it has to do with Japan. Japan has so many bookstores and art book fairs. I lived there for thirteen years and went to fairs and bookshops every year. But talking with distributors and bookstores in Japan, I realized they understand books from the West far better than those from other Asian regions or other publishing scenes around Asia. And even between Asian countries, each of which may have famous publishers and famous artists. We still know very little about one another.
The political situation remains complicated, but I believe that books, being smaller in scale than a large exhibition, can travel between us more easily. So this time, I'd like to invite all three of you to bring the books you're working on to an exhibition in Tokyo this October. To start, I'd love to hear briefly what kinds of books or artists you'd like to introduce to Tokyo this time.
Withit Chanthamarit：
I haven't published any books yet, but as a bookshop in Bangkok, I've always worked in two directions: bringing books from outside the country to customers here and looking for books from Southeast Asia to present to my customers, most of whom are not Thai, but from the West and from other parts of Asia.
It's exactly as you said: we are all Asian, yet we don't really know each other. For example, I know almost nothing about photobooks from the Arab world, and only a little about China, and my customers are the same. I try to collect and present photobooks from Southeast Asia. To be honest, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines produce more photobooks than Thailand does. In our country, producing photographic work is difficult enough; printing books is even harder. So, I think what you're inviting me to do is very important: I want to bring photobooks from here to the outside world.
Nour Salamé：
Our objective is not only to bring Arab artists and photographers, but also a mission, a concept. These are artists who fight every day to present a different point of view; their photography is a living testimony to what is happening in the region and the struggles it faces. That's the message we'd like to carry through the artists and photobooks we'll be bringing.
We would also like to show our know-how. We greatly admire the Japanese craft of bookmaking, and we, too, put special attention into the details of fabricating our books. So we'll bring regular titles, as well as limited-edition books handmade and hand-sewn in our workshops in the Arab region.
Saudi Art: Reflections on Mediums of Modernity and Contemporality
Dr. Abeer Alsaadi, Dr. Khulod Albugami, Bader Albalawi, Abdulrahman Al-Soliman, Cecilia Ruggeri, Haytham Nawar, Kaph Books, 2025
Dr. Abeer Alsaadi, Dr. Khulod Albugami, Bader Albalawi, Abdulrahman Al-Soliman, Cecilia Ruggeri, Haytham Nawar, Kaph Books, 2025
Zhen Shi：
I very much agree with Nour. There are real similarities across our practices. What we aim to show this time at T3 Book Marché is the touring ten-year retrospective of La Maison de Z, which we presented in Kyoto at the end of April, during the opening of KYOTOGRAPHIE. That was a rather condensed version of the retrospective, due to the limits of the physical space. This time we'd like to develop it a bit more, to give the audience a panoramic view of what we've been doing in the past decade in publishing. It's also a great chance for us not only to show what we've done, but to learn about the Japanese market.
In France, we have access to a great deal of Japanese photobooks, both antiquarian and contemporary. But for us as publishers, the Japanese market remains a mystery. We know it's a big market where, for decades, people have had the habit of expressing themselves through books: buying, conserving, and circulating books, magazines, zines, and all forms of printed matter. But we don't know how to step into it. I wonder whether we're all facing a similar situation.
T3 PHOTO ASIA 2025 Exhibition View
Jin Qiuyu：
That's a crucial question; as a foreigner who lived in Japan, I feel it too. We discussed this within the T3 team as well. Besides the Book Marché, we also run a photo fair whose director is a Korean publisher who also runs a gallery and a bookstore in Seoul. The local community in Japan is very, very tight-knit. And book fairs are always short, two or three days, more like a pop-up market. Of course, the value of a physical event is that you meet other publishers, bookstores, and artists in person; but there's still a distance between participants.
This time we're trying a new format. Instead of arranging publishers' tables in a straight line, we're setting up thirty round tables, with three publishers from different places sharing each one. You still have your own space, but you'll be talking to each other in close proximity. Over those two days, you'll have to get to know one another. My feeling is that the distance between the local community and outsiders exists from the very start, but it can shrink if you keep communicating and getting to know each other. It's all about continuity. The question Zhen raised is really the central question for our fair this time, too.
Which leads to the next topic: why do we still need book fairs today? When you, as a bookstore or a publisher, attend a fair in a completely different country, what do you expect from it? What do you want to learn from the locals — and what do you want the audience to feel from your practice?
Part3
Book Fair: A Space Beyond Publishing
Book Fair: A Space Beyond Publishing
Nour Salamé：
Book fairs are essential for us as publishers because they give us direct contact with the public. In a bookstore, shelf space is limited; it can't showcase all of a publisher's books. At a fair, we can show our universe as a whole, present it to international audiences, interact with and understand people's needs, and defend our artists' ideas. Fairs provide a rightful platform for the books, for the authors, and for the audience. So they're really very important.
Zhen Shi：
I totally agree. The book fair is one of the rare occasions in our work as publishers when we can face the audience in person. When we get direct feedback through their words, expressions, and gestures, and come to understand the differences among audience communities. We attend many international fairs every year, and I've noticed something interesting: depending on the continent and country, people's interests vary widely. That in itself is a big thing for us to learn.
La Maison de Z 10th Anniversary Retrospective Exhibition, Nitesha, Kyoto, 2026
Withit Chanthamarit：
I agree with both of you. My bookshop actually started at an art book fair: the Bangkok Art Book Fair. I began on Instagram, and a few months later that same year, I finally saw my customers physically at the fair, not just as usernames. With a physical space, I could talk with them more: "If you like this photographer, what about this one?"
Since then, I haven't had many opportunities to attend international fairs. I went to a fair called PhotobookJP at Osanbashi Hall in Yokohama in 2018. So I'd really like to see what fairs are like now, beyond the bookshop I run every day, and beyond the fairs held in my own country. I imagine fairs abroad have more speakers, more attendees, and a wider range of perspectives to share.
Jin Qiuyu：
Withit, you've also organized a small book fair yourself, right?
Withit Chanthamarit：
Yes, I ran a small fair together with some co-founders. In Thailand, we have only one art book fair: the Bangkok Art Book Fair, which has been running for seven or eight years. One year it paused. Since we had joined almost every year, all our friends kept asking, "Is it not happening in 2022? We could only say, "We don't know; we really don't know." A few of us friends decided to put on a smaller fair named “printPRINT”, inviting local friends plus five international publishers and artists. Only twenty-five tables. And the outcome was great: participants said that, unlike at the big fairs, they actually had time to talk to each other.
printPRINT 2025
Jin Qiuyu：
This time, T3 is also trying to build a closer community. Among the book fairs in Japan, we're not the biggest, so we want to take good care of the publishers and participants, including after the fair ends. It's a good question: how can a book fair create relationships that continue after it's over? A fair lasts only two days. Afterward, how do we keep talking to each other to catch up and see how things might change next year? We're currently talking with local bookstores in Japan to see whether they can carry the international publishers' and participants' books on a longer-term basis after T3 Book Marché.
Part4
The Art Book as a Medium Today
The Art Book as a Medium Today
Jin Qiuyu：
Let's get back to your own work from the fair. How do you think about the book? What about the art book in particular as a medium these days? As we all know, publishing and selling new books is slow work, a kind of everyday devotion. What was your original belief in how art books and photobooks could change things, could live with us today? It's a big question, but I'm curious how you see it in your different regions and practices.
Nour Salamé：
What we're seeing in our region is actually a rise in art book sales. There is increasing demand because institutions and artists have realized it's the only way to safeguard and archive their practice, and it's far more impactful for rendering art than a website or an Instagram account.
For us, sales and demand for art books have only been increasing over time. When the quality of the books is high, people collect them, and the artist's work enters every home in the highest quality. We don't feel that the technological changes happening worldwide are affecting art books in our region.
Atlas of Cinematic Affinities: 15 Years of Doha Film Institute,
edited by Zaina Bseiso.
Published by Kaph Books, 2026.
edited by Zaina Bseiso.
Published by Kaph Books, 2026.
Jin Qiuyu：
That's very interesting. As you say, photobooks and art books today have become something of an archive. Perhaps less a part of people's everyday interests than before and more a way for artists to archive their practice. But I also have the feeling that this archive remains a limited circle, not limited regionally but in the sense that it's still mostly for professionals, not yet truly open.
How can art books engage people's daily lives again? That's an interesting question, especially since the cost of making books keeps rising. Ten years ago, around 2013, photobooks and art books were easier to acquire; now, as Nour says, we make more beautiful, more limited, higher-quality books. Yet the reach to audiences seems to be narrowing. Though in Japan, perhaps, things are different.
Zhen Shi：
I have a slightly different opinion on this. In terms of form, I see the art book or artist book more as a small container that holds an entire concept to archive a project. For visual and conceptual art, it's not only a catalog but also beautiful pictures beautifully printed on the page. There's the archival value of the whole thought and concept behind the project: the design decisions and production details are all rooted in the artist's idea. I believe that's one of its essential values.
As for audiences, I can only speak from my perspective in Europe, where I see things moving toward two totally different communities of readers. One is the art book collector, what we call in French the ‘bibliophile’: they invest significant amounts of money to follow a publisher, certain artists, certain forms, or themes; that's where their passion lays. The other is the young practitioner: artists and collectives who make publications that are much lighter financially and quite experimental.
Some publisher friends of mine who are quite active in Europe are also dividing their publishing lines in two. With production costs and retail prices rising, one line sits above a certain price point, serving professionals, collectors, and people who aren't so sensitive to price; the other line is aimed at a larger public, where the publisher keeps a careful eye on the final retail price so that a wider audience can access the project.
Introducing “Visions of Japanese Women Photographers Seen in Photobooks”
from I’m So Happy You Are Here
Location：TOKYO SQUARE GARDEN 1F ART GALLERY
October 4 (Sat) – 27 (Mon), 2025
from I’m So Happy You Are Here
Location：TOKYO SQUARE GARDEN 1F ART GALLERY
October 4 (Sat) – 27 (Mon), 2025
Jin Qiuyu：
I've also noticed a change. Nowadays, universities in Japan have begun purchasing books from art book distributors such as Twelvebooks and major art bookstores. They believe their students and libraries need more art books. It was quite fresh for me to see photobook and art book corners in university libraries. Even at universities that aren't art schools. That's a big change for the younger generation: they can encounter these books more easily, not only in bookstores.
But this brings us back to the earlier question: of the books people can see in Japan, probably over eighty percent come from Western-centered publishers. My real goal this time is to introduce more Asian publishing to Japan's younger generation. With travel costs so high these days, books are the best and easiest way for them to learn about other countries, cultures, and artists. I truly hope the books we bring to Tokyo can somehow stay in Tokyo, not only in private spaces but also in public libraries and other channels.
Part5
Collaborating with Artists
Collaborating with Artists
Jin Qiuyu：
I'm also curious how you choose to work with artists. How do you decide which books to introduce to people? Artists themselves are curious about this too: How do you start working with a new artist on a new project?
Vacilando Bookshop
Withit：
Our ecosystem in Thailand is quite different from that in the places where you're both based. The culture of art books and photobooks here is still very young. Even though the art book fair has been running for years, the number of locally produced publications remains limited. I would say I can't really choose to work with artists; rather, I “wait” for local artists to be ready to turn their work into publications, and that can take years.
For example, a younger friend of mine, a photographer, documents everything in his high school years. But he didn't know how to make books or how to communicate with the printing house. With the book design on top of that, it took another six or seven years. In the end, he had to print the book in India, not in Bangkok, because of the price. From the finished body of work to the printed book took four years, and there's still no second book from him.
The role of my bookshop is rather to introduce local artists to our local communities and to explain why the artist matters and why the photobook matters. In our culture, archiving is simply not a basic practice: people will buy a photographic print or literature, but not artist books. Most of the time, the only publication that comes out of an exhibition is a catalogue; the thinking behind the work rarely gets published. That's the difficult part for us, and it's what I want to keep advocating for within our community in Thailand: there are many people outside Thailand who would like to know what we are thinking and doing. How about you, Nour?
Nour Salamé：
The way we decide to work with an artist is this: we study their project, meet with them, and ensure it aligns with the editorial line we believe in and with our quality of work and production standards. That's how we collaborate with anybody—an artist, an institution, an event. We have a very strict editorial policy.
Photographs 1842-1896: An Early Album of the World,
Christine Barthe, Issam Nassar, Carmen Perez Gonzalez, Co-Edited by Kaph Books x Louvre Abu Dhabi x Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, 2019
Christine Barthe, Issam Nassar, Carmen Perez Gonzalez, Co-Edited by Kaph Books x Louvre Abu Dhabi x Musée du Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, 2019
Jin Qiuyu：
So normally, do you go looking for artists, or do you also consider proposals from artists and institutions?
Nour Salamé：
They usually come to us. They submit their projects by email; a selection committee reviews each project, and then we move forward with it.
Jin Qiuyu：
That's important. Every publisher and institution has its own way of working. Jean, I think you tend to work more closely with artists, discussing a great deal throughout the publishing process.
Zhen Shi：
It's really a case-by-case question. There's no single answer for me. But I have to say, this is one of the most asked questions by artists and the galleries and institutions we work with: What are your rules for choosing an artist? For us, there are no "fixed rules".
First, we filter out any project that falls outside our ongoing program. As I explained at the beginning, we have a rather particular approach: publishing is the primary method of my research, so everything must fit within the program; anything outside it is out.
Within the program, two situations arise. Sometimes a project comes to us from an artist who already has a deep understanding of the book's language. In that case, I really prefer to play ping-pong with the artist: we understand each other, we make sure every design concept of the book is rooted in the artist's concept, and the book is built up little by little, by the artist and by us, a kind of organic co-creation. But it also happens that an artist has full command of the body of work itself yet doesn't really know how to construct a book and doesn't know much about the book's language, and they trust us completely. Then they give us ‘carte blanche.' Both happen; it truly depends on the case.
Jin Qiuyu：
For younger artists, for anyone not yet familiar with how art books and photobooks get published, these are very practical questions, and they help everyone understand why books matter and why fairs matter. A general audience arrives at a book fair mostly looking for what interests them, but for artists, a fair is also a place of research: they can find out what kind of publisher or editor they'd like to work with, and that changes how they think about their next publication, their next project. And the starting point is always the hardest.
Wild Grass, JT, La Maison de Z, 2024
Part6
The Future Begins with Ongoing Dialogue
The Future Begins with Ongoing Dialogue
Jin Qiuyu：
You've both worked in this industry for a long time. How do you think the world of book fairs and publishing is changing? And in the near or distant future, what would you like to see change, and what would you like to stay the same?
Nour Salamé：
It would be nice to see fewer borders: solutions for easier shipping, easier transportation, and easier communication; those would be really welcome. What we would not like to see change is the authenticity of holding an object in your hands, the beauty of looking at art through a book that is itself a work of art, and the human contact, which is so important.
Jin Qiuyu：
Indeed. When we talk about books these days, people often think of e-books, but when we talk about art books or photobooks, no one imagines they could be e-books—the real, material object is right there in your hands, almost irreplaceable. I think that answers something fundamental about what a book is. Withit, what do you hope for your bookshop and its community?
printPRINT Art book fair view
Withit：
For my bookshop, I wish I had a bigger community here: more readers, buyers, collectors, and makers. I'm the middleman: I have to introduce everything to everyone. Talking with the two of you, publishers and editors. I realize that, as a bookshop, I'm interested in everything, but I can't bring it all into my shop. I wish there were more people who speak my language, people to discuss things with over the long term; there's so much I still need. That's why international book fairs are so important. And I agree with you: a photobook can't exist as an e-book. I can't even imagine how that would work.
Jin Qiuyu：
There's a story you told me before, when we were discussing a young Japanese reader who visited your bookshop.
Withit：
Yes! It's one of the experiences I cherish most from running the shop. A young Japanese guy, about nineteen, came to our bookshop as a tourist, tucked away in the middle of nowhere. I still don't know how he found us. After he went back home, he wrote to me that he was amazed that a bookshop so far from his hometown had so many Japanese photobooks, and that he felt deeply connected to it. Some years later he came back, bringing a novel: a short story he had written from his travels, and asked me to sell it in the shop.
For a bookshop, this is the best kind of experience: meeting ordinary people who are becoming writers, who want to start their creative careers. He comes every two years; earlier this year he came again, bringing the second book in the series, and we're still in touch. I would love to see how Thai readers respond to his books, too.
Vacilando Bookshop
Zhen Shi：
As for how daily life has been changed by photobooks, mine has already been completely changed: I have tons of them in storage (laughs). And I really love the story of the young Japanese man discovering the bookshop. I believe some things are unchangeable. The photobook and artist-book worlds are very niche circles, and the connections within that circle, between publishers, between publishers and bookshops, and between bookshops and artists, are very organic and very tight. That's how this world was created: all of us together contributed this lovely energy, this lovely vibe. That's why, even though we always joke that "there's no money in photobooks," everyone keeps investing in this expensive passion. It's a charming, deeply creative world. That is not going to change.
What I do hope will change is the fundraising system and the way the business side works, like the logistics and warehousing Nour mentioned, so that "no money in photobooks" might become "a little money in photobooks." Because everyone working in this industry has invested so much time, energy, and expertise, and they all deserve to be treated better.
Jin Qiuyu：
That's also what our generation is trying to do. I, too, hope the infrastructure will improve so that new and experimental books and practices can emerge in ways we can't yet imagine. This October, we'll hold the T3 Book Marché over two days from Oct. 17 to 18. We'll end the conversation here for now. I hope we can first meet in Tokyo, get to know each other and our books, and then continue this conversation next year and into the future. Thank you all for today. Jean, I know you can't come to Japan in person this time, but we'll see you online during the fair, and Withit, we'll definitely see you in Tokyo.
Zhen Shi：
My love will be there with everybody.
Jin Qiuyu：
Wonderful. Thank you all for your time! And we'll let you know before we publish this article.
All：
Thank you for having us. Bye!
Jin Qiuyu
Jinqiuyu Jin is an independent curator focusing on Asian moving-image. She is the director of T3 Book Marché and a curator of non-syntax. She is currently a PhD candidate at Tokyo University of the Arts and is based in Tokyo.
Nour Salamé
Nour Salamé is the Founder and CEO of Kaph Books, an independent publishing house dedicated to visual arts, photography, architecture, and cultural heritage across the Arab world. Founded in 2015, Kaph Books has become one of the region's leading publishers of high-quality art books, recognized for documenting and promoting the work of Arab artists, photographers, architects, and cultural practitioners through carefully researched and beautifully produced publications.
Before founding Kaph Books, Nour began her career as a management consultant at Deloitte Consulting in Paris, before joining L'Oréal in marketing and management. She combines this business background with a strong commitment to publishing and cultural preservation.
Zhen Shi
Zhen Shi is the founder and director of La Maison de Z, a French publishing house and cultural platform connecting visual art, publishing, and the art economy. Through her work, she explores how cultural content can continue to create value today through artistic research, material experimentation, and long-term collaboration.
Founded in 2015, La Maison de Z specializes in visual art, with a focus on contemporary photography, independent publications, and artists' books. The platform approaches publishing as a form of research, exploring the intricate relationship between memory and reality. From concept to design, from visual image to material form, La Maison de Z continually challenges the possibilities of paper as a medium, while examining the art book as a language in its own right.
Withit Chanthamarit
Withit Chanthamarit worked as a photographer, film location scout, and artist's assistant before opening Vacilando Bookshop in 2017 — an independent bookshop housing a carefully chosen mix of books and publications from around the world, each selected to spark curiosity and conversation among those who find meaning in beautiful ideas in photography and print.
Vacilando operates as a co-experienced space hosting reading sessions, book discussions, and open studio gatherings — drawing an engaged community of Thai and international readers in a setting rare to find in Bangkok.
Vacilando Bookshop is a co-founder of printPRINT, a compact art book fair of 25 tables, established in 2024.