In LONG LIVE BOOKS!, Laster transcribes excerpts of Sming’s essay of the same name into a series of paper works. Written from Sming’s home in Silicon Valley where she makes books in her garage, the essay traces the region’s endless pursuit of the “next new thing” and argues that the book, an “ancient technology” that Amazon’s early business was built on and nearly destroyed, remains and endures through collective willpower. Laster gives this argument a physical form through hand-cut woodcut and papercut works, drawing on the punk legacy of quick graffiti stencils, as well as the papel picado and Chinese papercut traditions prevalent in the Bay Area, to create unorthodox bookforms. Her cut line gives Sming’s words the urgency of a stencil on a wall. Together, the words and papercuts invite audiences to consider reading, writing, lending, and buying books as small acts of resistance against algorithmic control of what we read, while celebrating the new wave of publishers and bookstores Sming identifies as vital to sustaining a renewed culture of print.

Formed in 2017, Sming Sming Books has since explored books as art, discourse, exhibition, and archive, publishing artists’ books, zines, and editions in close collaboration with artists whose works and ideas inform the design, material, and printing choices. LONG LIVE BOOKS! extends this practice into the exhibition space, translating ideas that are challenging to represent on paper into an installation of papercuts, and continues the studio’s commitment to cultivating critical discourse and cultural equity through publishing.