Guests: Eva Parra and Camilo Otero
Host: Christopher Kardambikis
Recorded at the Center for Book Arts in New York City on February 20, 2026
Calipso Press is an independent publishing project founded by Eva Parra and Camilo Otero. What began as a small experiment between friends in Madrid found its shape in Cali, Colombia, where Calipso became a space for making books and building community. Today, based in New York, Calipso continues to operate between places, languages, and traditions of print culture.
Their work moves between artists’ books, photography, riso printing, exhibitions, and collaborative publishing projects. At the center of it all is a belief that books are more than containers for content: they are social objects that create encounters, preserve relationships, and carry ideas across borders. Whether working with emerging artists, poets, photographers, or long-term research projects, Calipso approaches publishing as a form of conversation shaped as much by friendship and curiosity as by design and production.
Eva Parra is an artist, publisher, and educator. Trained in philosophy, her early work focused on color, perception, and the ways we experience images. Over time, these interests expanded through photography, printmaking, and publishing into questions of how we learn, make, and spend time with others. Fermentation is a recurring thread in her practice, both as a material process and as a way of thinking about transformation, care, and the sharing of knowledge. Through books, workshops, and participatory projects, she cultivates spaces for making, conversation, and experimentation together.
Camilo Otero is a publisher, curator, and writer working at the intersection of contemporary art, independent publishing, and cultural history. Originally trained as a journalist, he has spent much of his career thinking about how stories are organized, circulated, and preserved, whether through exhibitions, archives, or books. Drawn to artist-run initiatives and the social life of printed matter, he approaches publishing as a way of connecting people, ideas, and places through shared acts of research, exchange, and curiosity.