THE CARL WAGAN BOOKMOBILE, a project that ran through 2012/13, was a traveling campervan of cosmic proportions. Housing a gallery, printshop, studio, library, reading room, classroom, and community project within a 1988 VW Westfalia, the CARL WAGAN promoted active engagement with book-based cultural activity such as self-publishing, zine-making, screen-printing, and bookbinding. Subtitled “The Spaceship of the Imagination,” CARL was partly a loving homage to the innovation of astronomer Carl Sagan whose passion for dreaming continues to inspire generations of thinkers. The CARL WAGAN was an experiment in radical pedagogy—bringing the strategies, materials, ideas and dialogues of independent publishing to a wide variety of audiences.
Because of the high costs of maintaining the vehicle, I sold it in 2013 but revived the spirit of the project within the more flexible space of The Mountain School Bookhouse.
