Live Art Bookshop: Does what it says on the tin

A blog by Mary Osborn, Director

After 18 years, we are changing the name of our retail initiative from Unbound to Live Art Bookshop (or LAB, if you haven’t the time).

Unbound launched in 2007, developed in collaboration with Adrian Heathfield as part of his research role at LADA. As well as an income stream, Unbound was founded on the principle of developing, profiling and selling a specific collection: combining key texts with hard-to-find artists’ books, DVDs and limited editions that were both significant and less well distributed elsewhere, including LADA’s own publications. 

Since its inception, LADA has leveraged the bookshop to advocate for our sector and support live artists. Thousands of books and digital downloads, hundreds of DVDs, editions and zines have been purchased by you, our community.

Unbound closed for a brief period between 2022-2024, and was re-opened as part of Ria Righteous’s strategy as Interim Director and by recruitment of kane stonestreet as Unbound Co-ordinator. 

The relaunch has seen us return to posting orders out to as far away as Vancouver and as close as E2. From Birmingham to Berlin, we have particularly loved taking our shop out and about at festivals, events and book fairs. We want to take the opportunity of being back up and running to try some gentle experimentation, and a much-needed refresh. Our first step is the name.

Why ‘Live Art Bookshop’?:

• We feel the need for greater connection between the Live Art Development Agency and our bookshop, so that people looking for one will always find the other. And what greater connection than Live Art?
• ‘Live Art Bookshop’ does what it says on the tin. This philosophy is quoted frequently in our planning and scheming, as we prioritise clarity and transparency in what we do and how we do it.
• Another publisher used the brand name Unbound some years ago, (it’s a good name!) and we have bigger fish to fry than battling for cyber space.

Our ongoing process of experimenting with updating language is not limited to this name change. This work is filtering across many of the ways we describe and define our work. Over the next six months, look out for changes to our website and communications. We are really excited to share and test them out with you. 

Meanwhile, I invite you to spend some time in our Live Art Bookshop, either as a first-time visitor or as a long-term loyal customer, to familiarise or re-familiarise yourself with the world’s only bookshop dedicated to Live Art. We will continue to invest 100% of the profits from Live Art Bookshop into future programmes that support the practices of live artists and thinkers. 

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I leave you with some top picks: