UNLOCK BOOK FAIR 2026 - The World of Graffiti and Street Art Books Comes to Völklinger Hütte

from 13:00
Entry open to the UNLOCK BOOK FAIR

13:30
Tag Spotlight #6: Romantic Era Tourist Marks in Egypt
Urbanario Books (ES) & Hitzerot (DE) & Hania El Houry. 42 pages. Magazine launch

Research by Munich-based art historian Hania El Houry into antique photographs documenting Egypt’s famous sights along the Nile, always searching for carvings by European travellers — rare examples of often completely covered walls and statues showcasing countless inscriptions from 18th and 19th Century tourists.

13:37
Detective Show X
Robert Kaltenhäuser (DE) & Lene ter Haar (NL). Book launch

Book documenting an open-air exhibition in which visitors use clues to locate artworks in public spaces. First held in Aachen, August 2025, with 13 artists including Moses & Taps and Mathieu Tremblin. The presentation also covers the original 1978 Detective Show by John Fekner in Queens, NYC.

13:52
PlayBomb Vol.4
PlayBomb Magazin (ES) & Diego Verdes. Magazine launch

Graffiti magazine, fourth annual volume. More than fifty local writers have collaborated with PlayBomb Magazine, along with international writers from cities such as London, Berlin, Paris, Milan, Caracas, Bogotá, and New York.

13:59
Malicia
Ediciones Raritas (ES) & Malicia. 20 pages, A5, Risograph, edition of 100. Comic book launch

Autobiographical comic about trainwriting. The author revisits the years of painting trains and metros: a whole universe often dismissed as vandalism, but actually made of encounters, underground stories, run-ins with the police, and experiences that shaped an entire generation.

14:06
Alain Rault
Power Vision (FR) & Espack. A5, hardcover, 84 colour pages, edition of 100. Book launch

Monograph on Alain Rault, a Rouen figure who has been engraving calligraphic graffiti on the city’s surfaces for over 30 years, using a nail, a knife point, or coins.

14:13
Ausreißen
Doppelhand (DE) & Sebastian & Fabian. 416 pages. Book launch

A collaborative project comprising over 100 individuals and artists. Spanning 416 pages, it focuses on subcultures in rural East Germany and their desire to escape the constraints of normativity. Brand new release, beginning of May 2026.

14:20
ML7 — Metro Lissabon
ML7 Metro Lisboa (PT) & Pedro Esteves. 644 pages, hardcover, bilingual Portuguese & English. Book launch

The first photobook ever dedicated to graffiti on Lisbon’s metro system. It documents 30 years of underground expression, capturing the colours, risks, stories, and tension that shaped one of the most iconic — and least seen — graffiti environments in Europe. With contributions from over 60 writers, photographers and artists, and featuring around 30 first-hand testimonies, the book is the result of 5 years of research, curation and community building.

14:30–15:30
Book Signing: Rodopa
With authors GLOW & XPOME (BG).

A visual requiem for a building — the Rodopa Meat Factory. Completed in 1934, the complex was the largest slaughterhouse in Bulgaria. 240-page hardcover, exclusively released at Unlock. Four years of graffiti interventions in the abandoned complex.

14:45
Jon Phillips
Talk with Jon Phillips

Figure behind graffiti.org (Art Crimes), the pioneering graffiti website. Talk title and description pending.

15:15
Les Chroniques de Fink
Talk with Glob'Writer'z (FR) & Fink.

A project documenting metro systems around the world through the lens of graffiti, drawing not only from my own travels, but also from my friends’ adventures, encounters along the way, documents I have collected and legends that circulate within the scene. The talk explores the differences between scenes, environments, practices and their consequences depending on the cities and continents.

16:00 Uhr
Uyuni
Glob'Writer'z (FR). Edition of 100 signed and numbered copies. Book launch

This photobook documents the train cemetery of Uyuni in Bolivia, located on the Altiplano at nearly 4,000 meters above sea level. Through photographs taken in 2014 and 2016, the project captures the abandoned locomotives and the traces left by travelers and graffiti writers in this unique desert landscape.

16:07
Zaunwaffel
Hans Ostapenko (DE). Zine launch

A fence-climbing tool born from the physical toll of climbing fences (scratches, torn trousers, broken bones, ripped-off fingers). The “Zaunkönig” (fence king) developed a solution in a backyard workshop in Dortmund-Nord. Presented as a DIY zine with technical drawings.

16:14
Battering Ram of Imagination
Utopia Libri (CZ) & Valdimír Turner. 304 pages, colour. Book launch

A manual of urban disobedience: an eclectic selection of visual material, instructions, manifestos, interviews, stories, poetry and historical reflections on recent decades of creative non-conformity of the new urban avant-garde. Part of the project Publicly Beneficial Works, which also includes community workshops and the documentary film “Urban Disobedience Toolkit” (screened at the Cinema Room on Friday).

16:21
Section 63
Velocity Press (UK) & Colin Steven. 144 pages. Photography by Yushy. Book launch

Photographer Yushy documents the growing hunger for the DIY spirit of dance music, a renaissance of feeling reminiscent of the early 90s. Embedding himself with various crews across London, he gained their trust and friendship, stepping into their world and their fight to reclaim forgotten spaces to play music for the people just for a night.

16:28
UK Rave Flyers 1988–1989
Velocity Press (UK) & Colin Steven. 300 pages. Book launch

A deluxe collection of original flyers from the breakthrough years of UK acid house, capturing the DIY energy and bold visual style of a scene that grew from underground parties into a nationwide movement. Featuring high-quality reproductions and quotes from DJs, promoters and ravers.

16:35
Backjumps Magazin 1994–2000
Bald Books (DE) & Ruediger Glatz. 3 hardcover volumes in box, 840 pages. Edition of 982 copies. Buchvorstellung

A milestone in European graffiti history. All 16 original issues of the legendary Berlin magazine reproduced in true 1:1 scale, preserving the raw visual language, attitude, and energy that defined graffiti culture in the 1990s. Text contributions by JayOne, Mode2, Ruediger Glatz and Hugo Vitrani.

16:42
Moskauer Graffiti: Language and Subculture
Routledge (UK) & Susan Hansen. Author John Bushnell (US) in video recording. Book launch

Routledge reedition of an obscure 1980s classic on Moscow graffiti. Susan Hansen, as representative of Routledge’s graffiti collection, will present it. Igor Ponosov will join her in a short discussion, and present his new book on Moscow history, which continues the narration of the 80s title.

16:57
Lawless
Doppelhand (DE) & Sebastian & Fabian. 248 pages, edition of 500. Book launch

For several decades, a phantom has been wracking international graffiti yards: Lucky Lawless is considered one of the most active writers of his generation. Large-format publication documenting 25+ active years across Germany and Europe.

17:04
Spraytrains Vol. 9
Spraytrains (IT) & Chiara. Magazine launch

Ninth volume in the long-running Italian train graffiti fanzine series.

17:11
Coast Kings
Coast Kings Press (UK) & Tom Dartnell. 384 pages, hardcover, landscape. Book launch

European launch. A 384-page history of the pioneers of Brighton’s graffiti scene.

17:18
Peinture libre
Skira (IT/CH) & OX (FR). 176 pages, 24 × 28 cm. Book launch

Monograph by French artist OX, focused on his pasteup work. Published by Skira, a major international art publisher. OX currently has a retrospective at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy, an hour and a half from Völklingen.

17:30
Graffiti and Photography
With Alex FaKso (UK), Sascha Blasche (DE), Rüdiger Glatz (DE). Panel

“We shot film when no one was watching, documented subcultures and streets before anyone thought to assign them value. The graffiti world, a world that lived and died on walls, trains and that was erased by rain and painted over by rivals, existed in photographs or it ceased to exist at all. We were the memory keepers of a scene that had no museum, no gallery, no institution. We shot in the gap. That gap is now the archive of a generation.” (Alex FaKso). Alex FaKso, London-based graffiti photographer and author. Sascha Blasche, founder of Hitzerot, Berlin’s leading graffiti bookstore and publishing house. Ruediger Glatz, co-founder of Montana Cans, photographer and publisher of Bald Books.

FILM SCREENINGS

17:00
Zaunwaffel
With Hans Ostapenko (DE). Screening

Video clip presenting the Zaunwaffel fence-climbing device with measurements, tips, and tools for DIY reproduction. See also the related zine launch (16:07, VH Stage).

17:15
Urban Disobedience Toolkit
With director Vladimír Turner (CZ). Screening

Artist and filmmaker Vladimír Turner follows a group of guerrilla artists in Prague who reclaim their city through unconventional and subversive installations in public space — against the rapid urban transformation and the privatisation of public space it produces.

KINO ACHTEINHALB

19:30–21:00
Screening: Optische Schreie
Kino Achteinhalb, Saarbrücken — wissensART Filmprogramm
with director Lovorka Peric-Hassler. Moderator: KP Flügel.

Documentary about Klaus Paier, a physics graduate who illegally painted walls at night in Aachen in the 70s and 80s, finding in his large-format images an outlet for the things that frightened him: war, the arms race, nuclear power, environmental pollution, but also homophobia and academic pressure. The artist himself called these appeals, warning signals, protests and quotations “Optische Schreie” (Visual Screams). Three of Paier’s murals are now officially heritage-protected.

21:00–21:30
Post-screening discussion
Kino Achteinhalb, Saarbrücken — wissensART Filmprogramm
Discussion  

from 11:00
Entry open to the UNLOCK BOOK FAIR

12:15
Marginal Matters
Klick Klack Verlag (DE) & Roman Häbler. Includes launch of The Last Issue. Talk

Munich-based publisher documenting style writing with a focus on everything happening beyond the finished piece. Their work explores processes, contexts, and effects surrounding images and actions, situating graffiti within social, spatial, and urban frameworks. The talk presents their latest publication, The Last Issue (72 pages, featuring specials by SONIK, KARE and the HUZKIES crew), alongside selected projects and current discourses since 2010.

12:45
Tomek & Mosa Artist Residency Presentation
With Tomek & Mosa & PAL Crew (FR). Talk

Presentation of the Street Calligraphy Residency results. Tomek and Mosa (PAL Crew) have been working in the streets of Völklingen since 1 May. Pablo Tomek originates from the world of graffiti, which he engages with in an experimental and illicit manner through his collective, PAL. Mosa is a multi-disciplinary artist known best for his striking and expressive tag styles and his ‘bubble king’ throw ups, drawing comparison between the physical movements of graffiti activity and dance.

13:15
Book Signing: ML7 – Metro Lisboa
With author & publisher Pedro Esteves (PT). Book signing

ML7 is the first photobook ever dedicated to graffiti on Lisbon’s metro system. It documents 30 years of underground expression. 644 pages. Launch on Sunday at VH Stage.

13:30
The Bureaucracy of Mass Transit Graffiti: A View from Canada
With Jamie Jelinski (CA/UK). Talk

What happens after a graffiti incident on a mass transit system? Using examples drawn from his research on the Montreal Metro and Toronto Subway obtained via access to information requests, Jamie Jelinski examines how two of Canada’s largest transit companies investigate, photograph, and archive graffiti. In doing so, he shows how their employees, digital infrastructure, and administrative practice contribute to an institutional bureaucracy that ensures graffiti’s preservation long after it has been removed from the side of a train.

14:00
Future Language of the Ikonoklast
Velocity Press (UK) & Remi Rough. 271 pages, hardcover. Talk and book launch

In 1989, six visionary graffiti artists were invited to join a groundbreaking new collective spearheaded by Juice 126. The group sought to break free from the traditional constraints of graffiti, forging a bold path as a ‘post-graffiti supergroup’. Thus, the Ikonoklast Movement was born. The book covers 35 years of the collective’s work. Since a big part of their works were painted in the pre-social media era most of the book’s content is shown for the very first time in this extensive hardcover.

14:30
From the Streets to the Page: My Life as a Graffiti Publisher
With Alan Ket (US). Talk

What drives someone to dedicate thirty years to documenting graffiti culture? Alan Ket began publishing articles in the 1990s, released his first book in the 2000s, and never stopped. In this talk, he shares the story behind more than fifteen titles and why he chose publishing as a path that honors the culture he loves. Co-founder of the Museum of Graffiti in Miami.

15:15
Graffiti and Comic Books
With Mathieu Tremblin (FR), moderator; RIOT1394 (AT), Loiq (FR), Null Null Verlag (CL/DE). Panel

In recent years, graffiti writers have turned to comic books as a medium for telling stories about the culture — a full circle from a culture originally inspired by comic book letters. Loiq is the scene-favourite author known for his comics about graffiti, full of insider humour. RIOT1394 makes underground comix drawn from his own character universe, and presents his new title El Puño. Moderator Mathieu Tremblin presents Du Graffiti en Bande Dessinée, an archive of comic book panels featuring graffiti spanning 40 years of international comics.

16:00
Book Signing: Graffiti Blackbooks: Bates
With author Bates (DK). Book signing

BATES belongs to the first generation of European graffiti writers and started in 1984. Within a decade he became one of the most famous writers on the continent, best known for his legible, well-balanced and perfectly executed stylewriting pieces. The book collects four decades of sketches — raw, annotated, weathered. First volume in the new Graffiti Blackbooks series.

URBAN ART BIENNALE OPENING — 16:30–21:00 Uhr

16:30
Live Music Introduction with Elektro Hafiz

Contemporary Turkish folk music opening the Urban Art Biennale ceremony.

16:40
Official Presentation

Institutional presentation inaugurating the Urban Art Biennale.

17:00
Terminology in Urban Art
Panel with Jens Besser (DE), moderator; Prof. Ilaria Hoppe, Robert Kaltenhäuser (DE), Nico Ciarlone.

Discussion on the definitions, categories and language used to describe practices within urban art and graffiti.

17:00
Urban Art Biennale Tour with curator Frank Krämer

Guided tour of the Biennale exhibition including site-specific works and interventions by over 50 international artists.

18:00
Street Art, Between Illegality and Monument Protection
wissensART Film Programme with Nathalie David (FR/DE), Valentin Rothmaler (DE), Lovorka Peric-Hassler (DE), Monika Krücken (DE). Moderator: KP Flügel

Discussion preceding the Naegeli screening. The two films in the wissensART programme deal with artists whose illegal work was later officially recognised: Klaus Paier’s murals in Aachen, now heritage-protected, and Harald Naegeli, simultaneously prosecuted and awarded Zurich’s Grand Art Prize. A conversation among four voices close to these rare reversals. Nathalie David, director of the Naegeli documentary. Monika Krücken, City Conservator of Aachen, who oversaw the monument protection of Paier’s illegal murals. Valentin Rothmaler, Professor of Art and Architecture at Hochschule Wismar, who invited Naegeli to teach at the Wismar International Summer Academy. Joined by filmmaker Lovorka Peric-Hassler.

18:45
Harald Naegeli : Der Sprayer von Zürich
wissensART Filmprogramm. Presented by director Nathalie David in discussion with KP Flügel.

The Sprayer of Zurich has been challenging the line between art and property damage since 1977. In 2020, back in his home city at the age of 81 and living with terminal cancer, Naegeli sprayed more than fifty Dance of Death figures across Zurich during the Covid lockdown. That same year the city awarded him its 50,000-franc Kunstpreis for his life’s work, while the canton filed criminal charges against him for the same sprays. The film is his testament.

20:30
BOUZUQΣΣ
With Kadir ‘Amigo’ Memiş. Live contemporary Turkish folk music by Elektro Hafiz. Dance performance

When Kadir ‘Amigo’ Memiş dances, he summons his creativity from memories of his childhood as a shepherd in Anatolia. He joined his parents in Berlin in 1984 and found his way into hip-hop culture and breakdance. Founder of the internationally acclaimed Flying Steps, Memiş has devoted himself to Style Writing — an art form between graffiti, calligraphy and personal handwriting.

from 11:00
Entry open to the UNLOCK BOOK FAIR

11:00
Urban Art Biennale Tour with Frank Krämer

Guided tour of the Biennale exhibition including site-specific works and interventions by over 50 international artists.

11:45
Duality
With author & publisher Olaf Jansen (NL). Book launch

Duality tells the story of Ukrainian graffiti writers taking on the task of camouflaging vehicles used to protect their country against the Russian aggressor. It documents the lifestyle and works of the writers involved, covering the period before the large-scale invasion until the present day. 88 pages, Japanese binding. Non-commercial fundraiser edition.

11:52
Réveil Forced
Carpe Noctem (FR) & Pierre Tiberghien. 48 pages, A5. Zine launch

Punk and graffiti zine combining street bombing photography, trip reports from New York and Montreal, interviews with a DIY punk zine maker from Rennes and with Cap d’Origine about transmission and conservation of graffiti. Personal texts, pictures of punk gigs all over France. Comix by Juju Comix and Nono32. Fourth issue in the Réveil Forcé (Forced Awakening) series, documenting the intersection of punk and graffiti cultures through a deliberately DIY format.

11:59
Rodopa
GLOW & XPOME (BG). 240 pages, hardcover. Book launch

The book presents a visual ‘requiem for a building’ — the Rodopa Meat Factory. Completed in 1934, the complex was the largest slaughterhouse in Bulgaria at the time and remained operational until the early 1990s. In 2022, GLOW and XPOME began exploring the abandoned complex. Over four years, they left works across the entire structure, from the main hall to the clock tower. Book signing on Friday at the publisher stall.

12:06
P.Nuts: Highlights of a Low Life
GE.RÄ.T. Verlag (DE) & Steffen Mischke. 208 pages, hardcover, edition of 200. Book launch

A curated selection of German writer P.NUTS’ favourite paintings — created over a decade painting his name. P.NUTS is a member of the Ghettoblasters crew. Signed and numbered copies.

12:13
Dick Pics
Per Englund (SE), 52 pages, A5. Book launch

Typology of dick graffiti collected in ten countries during ten years (2014–2023).

12:20
Ultras and Graffiti in Thessaloniki
Death Vallée (FR) & Thomas M'charek (FR). Series of 6 zines, 84 pages each. Zinevorstellung

Non-official publications about the Ultras/Graffiti phenomenon in Greece. Six fanzines documenting graffiti by football ultras of three clubs in Athens and three in Thessaloniki (Aris, PAOK, Iraklis). Reprinted for the fair. Death Vallée also presents two exclusive books: Athens Parkour (300 pages) and a publication about painting trains and streets in South India (200 pages).

13:00
Full Auto
terminalº (CA) & Jamie Jelinski (CA/UK). 220 pages, hardcover. Book launch

Opened in 1986, Vancouver’s SkyTrain was a futuristic experiment in mass transit: clean, quiet, elevated, and fully automated. Full Auto: Vancouver SkyTrain Graffiti, 2001–2007 documents how this system became a sustained and coveted target for graffiti writers during the first decade of the new millennium. Featuring more than 120 rare and previously unpublished photographs. Textual contributions from key figures of the era. Jamie Jelinski also gives a talk on Saturday (The Bureaucracy of Mass Transit Graffiti).

13:15
Into the Dawn
Jens Besser (DE), 104 pages, bilingual German & English. Book launch

Accompanying catalogue to the public art project of the same name. In cooperation with the Neue Sächsische Galerie, Jens Besser invited nine international artists to realise official interventions in public space during European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025.

13:22
Padiglione in Movimento
Jens Besser (DE). 112 pages. Book launch

The first complete publication documenting the unauthorised train art project that unfolded in parallel with the Venice Art Biennale across three editions: 2017, 2022, and 2024. International artists intervened on regional trains, transforming them into moving canvases dedicated to a symbolic and clandestine space: the Pavilion of the Vandals.

13:29
Tutti Liberi Libere Tutte : New Staffel
With author & publisher Andrea Ceresa (IT). Zine launch

Monographic fanzine of writers with an original style. Twelve issues in 2024 about Italian writers; the new season expands to international writers.

13:36
Grafemi 2
With author & publisher Andrea Ceresa (IT). Zine launch

For his GRAFEMI zine Andrea Ceresa gathered five European taggers who never stop evolving their signature and seem to try out new things with every tag. Second volume in the series. Hand-numbered limited edition in Monocromo notebooks by Pigna.

13:43
Buncity Band 1
Buncity (UK) & Oliver London (UK). 128 pages, A5. Book launch

Bevvy missions, mischief, lurking activities, graffiti, bombing, trains and all 35mm photography, illustrations and graphic design.

13:50
On Stylewriting
Bald Books (DE) & Rüdiger Glanz (DE). 88 pages, softcover pocketbook, edition of 450. Book launch

This pocketbook began as a single conversation — between a writer with thirty-five years inside the culture and an AI — and emerged, without a script, as something rare: a text that articulates what stylewriting truly is. Not a history. Not a photo book. A manifesto, a philosophy, a creed. The second half pays tribute to the Study of Style format from BACKJUMPS Magazine: eight writers including T-KID, KET, PART 1, WANE, KOMET, CYRUS, NOMADSKI, and RUEDIONE, each given the same word, each producing an entirely different language.

14:00
Charm
Vladimir Stekachev (RU). Screening

The film was made specifically for the exhibition “The Sad Charm of Things” in 2025 by artist Volodimer. A narrative depicting a single day in the life of an urban art artist, integrating exhibition exhibits into it, similar to product placement in film, except that these are not advertisements, but art objects from the exhibition. The film features the book L1 BDD, also exhibited at the fair.

14:20
Here and Not Elsewhere
David Demougeot (FR). FR/EN, subtitles in EN. Screening

Documentary about the Bien Urbain festival in Besançon, an annual programme of artistic interventions in public space running since 2011.

14:30
SAZ L-S Artist Residency Presentation
Mathieu Tremblin (FR). Presentation

Speculative Autonomous Zone Life-Size (SAZ L-S) is an artistic project that unfolds through a role-playing game and a series of site-specific interventions at the Völklinger Hütte. Its aim is to initiate a conversation with the future regarding the livability of the city of Völklingen and the future of the UNESCO World Heritage site. Introduction to the role-playing session that follows (14:45–19:30, outdoors, pre-registration required).

14:45
Noise Barriers: Highway Poetics
THWRB3AT (FR) & Nicolas Commune (FR). 60 pages, A4, edition of 100. Talk

Far from legitimate architectural forms and commissioned highway art, acoustic screens and noise barriers reveal almost pure utilitarian configurations, straight out the engineering design offices. Modern fortifications, concrete megaliths. Visual residues of the technique. Traces the highway infrastructure leaves in matter, across the landscapes it cuts through and reshapes. A photographic documentation of highway noise barriers and acoustic screens in Western Europe. Publication in press, 2026.

14:45
SAZ L-S Role-Playing Session
Mathieu Tremblin (FR), Sophie Prinssen, Léo Sallez. Workshop 
Limited to 20 participants; advance registration required

A role-playing game and series of site-specific interventions at the Völklinger Hütte, initiating a conversation with the future regarding the livability of the city and the future of the UNESCO World Heritage site — in light of its industrial past and the promise of a future hosting ‘green steel’ production. Presentation on VH Stage at 14:30. Game played in English or French depending on participants.

15:05
Urban Creativity: A Decade in Lisbon
Pedro Soares Neves (PT). Talk

Reflecting on over a decade of Urban Creativity Conference in Lisbon University. Drawing from the experience of organising 12 annual editions, exploring the evolution of the project and the strategic vision for the future of the international research network. Urban Creativity has published nine books and manages nine academic journals featuring nearly 800 open-access articles.

15:25
Walls that Talk: Visual Silencing in Berlin
Andi Schmitz (DE). Talk

This presentation explores the erasure of political graffiti in Berlin, focusing on how certain messages are removed from public view. Through photographs and wall studies, we will look at how dissent is managed in the city, whose voices are allowed to remain visible, and how graffiti reveals the politics of urban space.