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      • Bookbinding for Beginners – Evening Class
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Bouchra Khalili, Lucy Skaer, Artists’ Bookmarket

The Circle: Timeline for a Constellation

Bouchra Khalili

£26.00

Purchase this title

Published February 2026.

Available to pre-order now for the special price of £26.00

The Circle: Timeline for a Constellation concludes Bouchra Khalili’s ten-year investigation into the Arab Workers Movement (MTA), focusing on its theatre troupes, Al Assifa (the tempest) and Al Halaka (the circle, the assembly). Formed by undocumented North African workers in France (1973-1978), the MTA’s theatre groups were central elements in Khalili’s works The Tempest Society (2017) and the book of the same title (Book Works, 2019), the sound piece An Audio Family Album (2020) and the multi-screen film installations The Circle, and The Storytellers (2023) and The Public Storyteller (2024).

The publication brings together archival materials, chronological elements, essays, interviews with members of Al Assifa and Al Halaka, performers from The Circle, and a contribution and conversations with the artist. This ‘constellated’ examination highlights the MTA theatre troupes’ pioneering exploration of emancipatory belonging, agency, and artistic expression as fundamental human rights. These experiments culminated in the 1974 presidential candidacy of Djellali Kamal, an anonymous member of Al Assifa. Despite remaining anonymous, Kamal’s candidacy symbolized the potential for a new, egalitarian community, brought to life through performance.

This publication invites a new generation of readers to reflect on the lasting legacy of Al Assifa and Al Halaka, exploring how performance and storytelling can harness transformative civic power.

The publication expands on the video installation The Circle Project (2023), which premiered at the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023) and won the Biennale Prize, then at MACBA (2023) and Luma Foundation (Arles, 2023-2024; Zurich, 2025). A french edition of this book was published by Paraguay Press in conjunction with Bouchra Khalili’s multi-site solo exhibitions organized as part of the 2025 Festival d’Automne, for which she was the guest visual artist.

This edition will be published alongside the exhibition Bouchra Khalili: Circles and Storytellers, at The Mosaic Rooms, 18.02.26 – 14.06.26.

Texts by: Bouchra Khalili, Mohamed Amer Meziane, Abdellali Hajjat. Interviews: KJ Abudu, Saïd Bouziri, Hedi Akkari, Smaïne Idri, Mustapha Mohammadi, Philippe Tancelin, Mia Radford, Lucas Yahiaoui. Graphic Design by: Pascal Sémur.

Bouchra Khalili is a French-Moroccan artist born in Casablanca in 1975, based in Vienna and working itinerantly. In 2023, her work The Circle received the Sharjah Biennial Prize and in 2017 The Tempest Society was awarded the Ibsen Prize. Bouchra Khalili heads the Department of Artistic Strategies at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and is co-founder of the Cinémathèque de Tanger.


Artists’ Bookmarket, and event with Lucy Skaer, Fruitmarket, Edinburgh

Saturday 14.02.26 10.30am–6pm and Sunday 15.02.26. 10.30am–5pm. Free.

Book Works is back in Edinburgh for the Artists’ Bookmarket, 14 – 15 February 2026. The event runs over two busy weekend days with stalls laid out to showcase a wide array of work.

On Saturday 14 February, at 4.15pm, Lucy Skaer will be in conversation with Fruitmarket Director Fiona Bradley about her new artist book, The Truth and Untruth of Stones. Conceived as a moment in time The Truth and Untruth of Stones presents a vast rephotographing of Skaer’s work alongside more recent photographs of surroundings, events and landscapes from the artist’s life, allowing for reassessment and recategorisation. The book also includes responses from writers K Patrick and Ingrid Schaffner.

Artists’ Bookmarket is complemented by a busy events and workshops programme. More info on the stallholders and programme of talks and workshops, including our Artist’s Surgeries, via the Fruitmarket website.


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ABOUT US

Book Works is a leading contemporary arts organisation with a unique role as makers and publishers of books.

Established in 1984, we are dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists. Our projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects. Book Works consists of a publishing and commissioning department; and a studio specialising in binding, box-making and multiples.

STUDIO

The Book Works Studio offers a specialist bespoke service for a range of clients, from artists, designers, galleries, and businesses. We provide binding solutions, develop prototypes and specialise in unique book artworks, boxes, and portfolios. We have an extensive archive, and offer tailored educational events, and bookbinding courses. The Studio generates income from clients and is self-sufficient.

PUBLISHING

Book Works Publishing is dedicated to supporting new work by emerging artists. Our projects are initiated by invitation, open submission, and through guest-curated projects and include publishing, a lecture and seminar programme, exhibitions, the development of an online archive, and artists’ surgeries and workshops.

Our audience is vital to our work. The process of engaging and developing our audience is initiated with our commissioning programme, and driven through all aspects of our activities, particularly our public programme of events, our workshops, artists’ surgeries and education activities, and through our interest in collaborating with other organisations and libraries. Our programme of commissions is diverse, and reflects our commitment not just to work with cultural workers from all backgrounds, but to invest in networks and programmes that engage, and develop and create new artistic voices.

Recent Commissions

Includes new projects with: Amy Ching-Yan Lam, Sofia Niazi, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha and Jimmy Robert, Katrina Palmer, Prem Sahib, and Cecilia Vicuña. Our current Open Submission is Satirical Strains, guest edited by Holly Pester. Forthcoming titles include The Kingdom by Yoel Noorali and The Circle by Bouchra Khalili.

SUPPORT US

By supporting Book Works you will help support artists and writers at the emerging stage of their careers through our diverse commissioning programme of open submissions, guest editorships, public events, exhibitions and publications.

CHARITY

Book Works is a registered charity, dedicated to advance education for the benefit of the public in the visual arts, particularly books which may be recognised as works of art in their own right.

TRUSTEES

We have a board of trustees who input their range of diverse expertise and interests into our development:

Tess Denman-Cleaver (Chair)
Maria Amidu
Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso
Aliya Gulamani
Gerrie van Noord
Max Porter


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