Artists’ books are powerful tools that expand narratives, document practices, and experiment with materials, while reaching wider audiences. They offer slower, more intimate encounters, reminding us that some ideas need to be held, not just seen. It’s in this spirit that Simetría Doméstica, an independent publisher and curatorial platform, has taken up residence at Dimensions Variable, with a bookstore and rotating exhibition program through the end of the year.
Its founder, Estefanía Papescu, came to artists’ books through literature. With observant eyes and a firm sense of purpose, she speaks of books as lifelong companions. "I'm a writer and have always been connected to this world," she explains, but her hunger extended beyond pages. She became, in her words, “obsessed” with art book fairs, planning trips around them. This dual appetite for words and for the radical possibilities of the book as an art form would shape everything that followed.
In 2016, she curated and organized the Feria Independiente de Arte y Literatura (Independent Art and Literature Fair) at MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires). After that, she co-founded La Revolución del Deseo (The Revolution of Desire) with visual artist Fernanda Laguna—the first Buenos Aires fair dedicated to feminist printed matter: books, zines, and independent publications by and about women. It ran twice before the pandemic. Now, six years in, Simetría Doméstica has grown into a publishing house and curatorial platform active across galleries, museums, fairs, and artist-run spaces.
.png)
Top left: Carol Jazzar. Top right, left to right: Carlos Betancourt, Alice Ricci.Bottom left: Karla Kanto. Bottom right: Fernanda Maglione. Photo: Evelyn Sosa, courtesy of Simetría Doméstica.
At Dimensions Variable, she is presenting twenty books by Latin American and local artists, including Carlos Betancourt, Carol Jazzar, Karla Kantorovich, Powerpaola, Fernanda Maglione, Felipe Alvarez Parisi, Sergio Bazán, Matías Ercole, Ana Clara Soler, Pepe López Reus, Elisa Strada, Mary Larsen, Agustina Galíndez, Diana Drake, Alice Ricci, and Carolina Martínez Pedemonte. She plans to add local publications throughout the residency, letting the bookstore grow in conversation with the community.
But what makes an artist’s book in Papescu’s constellation? The distinction cuts to the core of her practice. “For Simetría, the artist’s book is one that is a work of art in itself,” she says. “We’re not looking for a book that showcases an artist’s work, but one that is a work within the artist’s oeuvre.” Her selection process is rooted in connection: many books come from artists she knows, others arrive through networks. For now, she’s focused on contemporary voices from places that have shaped her most.
That approach resonates within Dimensions Variable’s artist-run structure. “There’s nothing more beautiful than being in a place managed by artists,” she reflects. The two projects move in parallel, creating what she calls “a lovely network for coexistence,” where collaboration may emerge organically.
.png)
Simetría Doméstica's exhibitions don't mirror the books but exist as "separate spaces that coexist and nourish each other," Papescu explains. The inaugural show features Argentine artist and musician Julián Desbats, whose paintings on cardboard—a material loaded with social meaning in Argentina, where it's collected and resold by those living in the margins—depict distorted bodies in bright colors, suspended between gendered identities. She chose his work to disrupt aesthetic norms and invite unfamiliar perspectives.
In the months to come, Simetría Doméstica will activate the space with artist-led workshops, writing intensives, and public reflections on Indigenous art, feminism, and literature. Some gatherings are charted, others will arrive unannounced, carried by the momentum of books, voices, and shared attention. Instead of a fixed calendar, a rhythm emerges: casual, fluid, shaped by presence.
What: Simetría Doméstica
When: August 14 - December 14, 2025 - Tuesday to Saturday, 01:00 pm to 06:00 pm
Where: 101 NW 79th St, Unit A, 33150, Miami, FL
.png)
.png)
