The Texas Book Festival (TBF) has announced Austin-based photographer Minta Maria as its 2022 festival poster artist.
The TBF was founded in 1995 by former library and then-First Lady of Texas, Laura Bush. The first festival took place in 1996, and it has continued as an annual event hosted in downtown Austin and at the State Capitol. The weekend features presentations, panel discussions, book signings, cooking demonstrations, and programs for participants of all ages.
Each year, TBF selects an artist to create an image that will be used on posters and t-shirts for the festival. In a press release announcing the 2022 artist, TBF’s Executive Director Lois Kim stated, “Selecting a Texas artist to celebrate in our Festival materials is one of my favorite traditions. Visual arts and literary arts go hand in hand in making our lives richer as we get to enjoy the originality and ingenuity of artists making sense of the world through their crafts.”
This year’s selected artist, Ms. Maria, received her BA in Journalism from the University of Texas and an MFA in Photography & Related Media from the School of the Visual Arts in New York. The poster image, titled Adrift, is part of Ms. Maria’s series (of the same name) that depicts newspapers that appear to be floating in the sky. Though the series captures an array of newspaper headlines from different days, the selected image for the poster features articles about and images of African American artists and writers.
2022 Texas Book Festival Poster, “Adrift,” by Minta Maria.
About the poster, DJ Stout of the design firm Pentagram said, “I love this image for this year’s poster because of two reasons. It’s an image created from text and writing — and it’s graphic as all get out. This may be the first time we’ve designed the festival poster around a dynamic image featuring journalism.”
The 2022 Texas Book Festival will take place November 5-6 and posters and t-shirts featuring Adrift by Ms. Maria will be available for purchase. To learn more about the event, visit the TBF website.
