Ｕｎｌｏｃｋ., Rathausstraße 75-79, Völklingen (2026)

08/05/2026

Doors open today! ✦ Unlock Book Fair 2026 ✦ Celebrating 10 years of Graffiti Books.

This year’s Unlock Book Fair gathers over 100 publishers and independent projects from 22 countries across four continents, including a special Guest UK Table. The programme runs to over 60 events across three days: book launches, signings, talks, film screenings, a kids’ workshop, a dance performance, and a street calligraphy artist residency in the streets of Völklingen. Many of the books and zines presented have been produced for the occasion of Unlock and are making their public debut here.

Unlock opens as part of the Urban Art Biennale’s launch weekend, with thousands of visitors drawn to this large-scale exhibition at the impressive Völklinger Hütte UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Among the many artists at the 2026 Biennale, the following are also exhibiting at Unlock:

Abcdef (DE)
Jens Besser (DE)
Andrea Ceresa (IT)
Brad Downey (US)
Analog Delinquents (UK)
Alex Fakso (UK)
Frukty (RU)
Mosa87 (FR)
Igor Ponosov (RU)
Remi Rough (UK)
Boris Tellegen (NL)
Tomek (FR)
Mathieu Tremblin (FR)
Vladimir Turner (CZ)
X-Pome (BG)
Zelle Asphaltkultur (DE)

Unlock Book Fair opening times:
➔ Friday 8 May: 1–6:30pm
➔ Saturday 9 May: 11am–7pm
➔ Sunday 10 May: 11am–5pm

➔ Day ticket: €17 ➔ Three-day Unlock discount: €27 ➔ Tickets at the gate ➔ Includes full access to the Urban Art Biennale and the major exhibition X-Ray: The Power of Roentgen Vision.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

07/05/2026

Analog Delinquents (UK) + Guest UK Table ✦ Publisher Spotlight at Unlock Book Fair 2026.

Analog Delinquents () is an independent magazine from Sheffield. Since 2020 they have released around a dozen issues shot entirely on analogue film, with writers and photographers from across the UK and beyond contributing work on bombing, street tags, trains, and the subcultures that surround graffiti.

This year they bring 5 Years of Analog Delinquents, a 355-page book published by their own Delinquent Press, full of unseen gems from their archives. The book is edited by Danny Crofts, with photographs by Edward Nightingale and SMT Crew, and contributions from Alex FaKso, Utah, Mr Freight Jack, YourAction, Pucca, and many more.

At the fair, they also curate our Guest UK Table, bringing together a selection of underground British editors and collectives:

Puno
Pavement Studio
Still Making Trouble
The Good Time People
Lee.102
Dillon From Brum
Roachmag
Exp.dition
Big Fu***ng Zine
No Remorse
NFA Crew
Pucca.

Analogue Delinquents are among the featured artists at the Urban Art Biennale.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ Analog Delinquents (UK)
✦ Presenting 5 Years of Analog Delinquents
✦ Guest UK Table

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

07/05/2026

BOUZUQΣΣ ✦ Dance performance by Kadir ‘Amigo’ Memiş (TR/DE) at Unlock Book Fair 2026.

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. Today he is best known as a dancer, choreographer and founder of the internationally acclaimed Flying Steps.

A key figure in the Berlin underground for decades, Memiş has devoted himself to an art form between dance, graffiti, calligraphy and personal handwriting. In 2003, he was part of Backjumps: The Live Issue in Berlin, one of the first exhibitions in Europe to explore the interfaces of street art, aerosol culture and hip-hop.

BOUZUQΣΣ closes the Urban Art Biennale Opening on Saturday evening, with live contemporary Turkish folk music by Elektro Hafiz ()—who will also open the Biennale stage.

Amigo is an old accomplice of Unlock. He closed the inaugural Tag Conference in Berlin in 2017, and performed again at the Cologne book fair in 2019 (opening image in this post). We are honoured to have him back for the 10th anniversary.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ BOUZUQΣΣ
Dance Performance
✦ With dancer and choreographer Kadir ‘Amigo’ Memiş (TR/DE)
✦ Live music by Elektro Hafiz (TR/DE)
30 min · Saturday 9 May, 20:30

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

06/05/2026

Even more Book & Zine Launches ✦ Unlock Book Fair 2026.

✦ P.Nuts: Highlights of a Low Life | Book launch with publisher Steffen Mischke (GE.RÄ.T. Verlag, .verlag, DE) ➔ A curated selection of P.NUTS’ favourite paintings, created over a decade painting his name. By German writer P.NUTS of the Ghettoblasters crew. 208 pages, hardcover, edition of 200, signed and numbered.

✦ Lawless | Book launch by Doppelhand (, DE) ➔ For several decades, a phantom has been wracking international graffiti yards. Lucky Lawless is considered one of the most active writers of his generation. Across Germany and Europe, his crews BLOW, W2D, and SY cause heart palpitations on public transport.

✦ Ausreißen | Book launch by Doppelhand (DE) ➔ Ausreißen, German for ‘running away’, documents subcultures in rural East Germany and their desire to escape the constraints of normativity. A collaborative project comprising over 100 individuals and artists, spanning 416 pages.

✦ On Stylewriting: A Chat | Book launch with author and publisher Ruediger Glatz (Bald Books, , DE) ➔ The result of an in-depth conversation between a graffiti writer with 35+ years in the culture and a Large Language Model. What emerged, without a script, was a conversation that deepened from description to manifesto to creed.

✦ Rodopa | Book launch and signing with authors and publishers GLOW () and XPOME (), BG ➔ Rodopa is 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. A 240-page hardcover gathering archival photographs and four years of GLOW and XPOME’s interventions across the abandoned site. XPOME is among the featured artists at the Urban Art Biennale.

✦ Ultras and Graffitis in Athens | Zine launch with author and publisher Death Vallée (, FR) ➔ Reprint of three fanzines documenting work by football ultras of one of the three clubs in Athens. Death Vallée also brings two new books at Unlock: Athens Parkour (300 pages), a book about messy urban life in Athens, and Indian Tour (200 pages), a publication about painting trains and streets in South India.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ Even More Book & Zine Launches
✦ P.Nuts (DE) | Lawless (DE) | Ausreißen (DE) | On Stylewriting (DE) | Rodopa (BG) | Ultras and Graffitis in Athens (FR)

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

06/05/2026

Duality (NL) ✦ Book launch at Unlock Book Fair 2026.

Duality () tells the story of Ukrainian graffiti writers taking on the task of camouflaging vehicles used to protect their country against the military agression. It documents the lifestyle and works of the writers involved, covering the period before the large-scale invasion until the present day. It’s where a graffiti subculture, albeit in a camouflaged form, has entered a war and found itself a new canvas.

The book runs to 88 pages and is bound in the Japanese style. This non-commercial project serves as a fundraiser for the writers themselves, since all the work carried out since 2022 has been done on a voluntary basis.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ Duality
Book Launch
✦ With the publishers (NL)

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

05/05/2026

More Book & Magazine Launches ✦ Unlock Book Fair 2026.

✦ Full Auto: Vancouver SkyTrain Graffiti, 2001–2007 | Book launch with author and publisher Jamie Jelinski (terminalº, .degree, CA) ➔ How Vancouver’s elevated, fully automated SkyTrain became a coveted graffiti target in the early 2000s. 120+ rare and previously unpublished photographs tracing the evolution of transit painting in the city, with local writers and visiting hands from Germany, Australia, Italy and Denmark.

✦ Spraytrains Vol. 9 | Magazine launch with publisher Chiara (, IT) ➔ A North Italy commuters benching blog turned glossy magazine, Spraytrains comes back to Unlock to present the ninth volume in its long-running series.

✦ Uyuni | Book launch with author and publisher Fink (, FR) ➔ Documenting the train cemetery of Uyuni in Bolivia, located on the Altiplano at nearly 4,000 metres above sea level. Edition of 100 signed and numbered with exclusive stencil. Published by Glob’Writer’z.

✦ Padiglione in Movimento | Book launch with Jens Besser (, DE) ➔ During three Venice Biennales (2017, 2022, 2024), international artists painted regional trains as a ‘Pavilion of the Vandals’, a clandestine counter-pavilion. Featured Urban Art Biennale artist.

✦ Into the Dawn | Book launch by Jens Besser (DE) ➔ Jens Besser invited nine international artists and artist groups to realise official interventions in public space during European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025. Texts by Robert Kaltenhäuser, Mathias Lindner and Besser.

✦ PlayBomb Vol. 4 | Magazine launch by PlayBomb Magazine (.magazine, ES) ➔ Built with over fifty writers from Madrid and cities in Europe an America. Featuring exclusive, in-depth articles on underground topics by the magazine’s daredevil reporters.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ More Book & Magazine Launches
✦ Full Auto (CA) | Spraytrains (IT) | Uyuni (FR) Padiglione in Movimento (DE) | Into the Dawn (DE) | PlayBomb (ES)

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

05/05/2026

Tomek and Mosa87 (FR) ✦ Artist Residency at Unlock Book Fair 2026.

Unlock brings Pablo Tomek and Alexandre ‘Mosa87’ Bavard from Parisian collective PAL, highly influential artists who merge graffiti calligraphy with contemporary art practice in new and striking ways.

Tomek and Mosa will create site-specific calligraphic interventions on surfaces throughout the streets of Völklingen, as well as in the post-industrial spaces of Völklinger Hütte.

The artists will present the results of their work in a talk on Saturday, where Mosa87 will also present his brand new publication Of Spirituality in Tagging.

Curated by Unlock director .es.

In collaboration with Automat (), an independent art project space in nearby Saarbrücken, Tomek and Mosa will present an exhibition related to their residency work. Opening Friday at 19:30. Martin-Luther-Straße 7–9.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ Street Calligraphy Residency
Artist Residency
✦ With Tomek and Mosa87 (FR), PAL Crew
Presentation: Saturday 9 May

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

04/05/2026

More Book & Zine Launches ✦ Unlock Book Fair 2026.

✦ Dick Pics | Book launch with author Per Englund (, SE) ➔ Typology of dick graffiti collected in ten countries during ten years (2014–2023). Side by side with initials, hearts, and faces, depictions of dicks should be the most common and original form of graffiti. 52 pages, A5, with texts by Lo Kauppi and Ülkü Holago.

✦ Noise Barriers: Highway Poetics | Talk and zine launch with author and publisher THWRB3AT (, FR) ➔ A new photo zine on highway noise barriers and acoustic screens in Western Europe. A4, 60 pages, French and English, edition of 100.

✦ Tutti Liberi Libere Tutte: New Season (, IT) | Magazine launch ➔ Monographic fanzine about writers with an original style. After twelve issues in 2024 dedicated to Italian writers, the new season expands to the international scene.

✦ Grafemi 2 | Zine launch with author and publisher Andrea Ceresa (, IT) ➔ Second volume in the Grafemi zine series, in which Ceresa gathers work by European taggers. Hand-numbered limited edition printed on Pigna’s classic Italian Monocromo school notebooks, unstapled and restapled by hand.

✦ Buncity Volume 1 | Book launch by Buncity (, UK) ➔ Buncity’s debut book, a 128-page A5 volume of bevvy missions, mischief, lurking activities, graffiti, bombing, trains and all 35mm photography, illustrations and graphic design, all his own work.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ More Book & Zine Launches
✦ Dick Pics (SE) | Noise Barriers (FR) | Tutti Liberi (IT) | Grafemi 2 (IT) | Buncity (UK)

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

04/05/2026

Ghosts in the Machine: The Hauntology of Graffiti and Rave Culture 1990–2010 ✦ Book signing with co-author Christopher Stead (UK) at Unlock Book Fair 2026.

Ghosts in the Machine () documents graffiti and rave subculture in the wake of a post-Thatcher Britain, as a disenfranchised youth finds social cohesion and identity through the act of graffiti. Meanwhile, rave’s rhetoric of social inclusion, set amid Thatcherism, resisted the binaries of boredom, race, class and gender, making it one of its generation’s most significant youth movements.

Written through the eyes of two participant observers, Christopher Stead and Nema, who witnessed these two movements in their infancy blossom into global sociocultural phenomena, the book contains seven chapters of imperfect histories, lucid anecdotes, and subcultural polemics to accompany 300 archival photos, with a foreword by the artist and activist Jonny Banger.

Published by (BE) and designed by Studio Aurèle Sack, the book is a 360-page hardcover in English. Stead will be at the fair signing copies at the Alias Press stall.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ Ghosts in the Machine
Book Signing at publisher stall
✦ With co-author Christopher Stead (UK)
Published by Alias Press (BE)
Saturday 9 May

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

04/05/2026

Archiving the Underground: 30 Years of Art Crimes and the Digital Evolution of Graffiti ✦ Talk by Jon Phillips (US) at Unlock Book Fair 2026.

Jon Phillips is one of the figures behind Art Crimes (graffiti.org), the world’s first and most enduring digital gallery for graffiti. Since its inception in 1994, Art Crimes has transitioned from a radical act of “aesthetic sabotage” to a vital historical archive of a global subculture. This presentation traces the site’s past as a pioneer of the digital underground, its present role as a bridge between the streets and institutional recognition, and a future where the ephemeral nature of graffiti meets the permanence of the digital record.

Full programme at unlockfair.com. Don’t miss the feast of graffiti, art and subcultures! 📚🔥❤️🎉

➔ Archiving the Underground: 30 Years of Art Crimes and the Digital Evolution of Graffiti
✦ Talk with Jon Phillips (US)
Friday 8 May

Unlock Book Fair 2026 • 8–10 May • Völklinger Hütte • Presented by Urban Art Biennale and GRACE Project

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