Building A Better World

Art / Activism / working (with) archive

Katharina Becker, Elodie Duncan-Duplain & Annie Haggarty, Catinca Malaimare, Susan Merrick, Lana Mizguina, Oriyomi Oladunjoye, Tom Ridgway, Mason Terrill

An exhibition of photographs, collages, videos and performances produced by a group of students (Photography, Graphic Design, Illustration, Fine Art) during Stefan Szczelkun’s creative residency with bookRoom in May 2016. They responded to the Working Press books by and about Working Class Artists, 1986-1996 archive under the guidance of the creator of the archive Stefan Szczelkun, the archivist Rebekah Taylor and publisher/curator of the project Emmanuelle Waeckerlé. Each student explored identity politics (class, gender, diversity, disability) from personal, historical and current perspective.

The exhibition also contains elements from the Working Press archive that students responded to, as well as a new bookRoom press publication RISE FROM YOUR CLASS NOT FROM IT.

The Working Press archive housed in UCA library focuses on a collective publishing imprint that includes the early works of artists such as Graham Harwood and Illustrator Clifford Harper. This imprint includes the first computer generated comic (If Comix, Harwood), the first book by Micheline Mason (Nothing Special) and one of the few books about Greenham Common (Greenham Common women's peace camp; a history of non-violent resistance, 1984-1995) by Beth Junor with illustrations by Katrina Howse.

Image Credit: Where will you find my gaze? by Catinca Malaimare