Working with Freedom House Art puts an honourable practice not only in the 21st century, but also puts it into practice.
The print is connected to history of struggle and protest becuse it was the pre-digital form of interconnections. Its inherent multiplicity and cheap production form enabled the print widespread dissemination. The print was viral. Remove the paper, and the internet makes the image as viral as the woodcut print in the late middleages illustrating the feudal uprisings. Here, the artist took the peasant’s side against the church and nobility, because the print already sat on the margins of the underdog.

Freedom House Art is that Printer in the Sky of then and now, where the making of an image or a letterpress poster can be called up for a workshop through a web of socially engaged printbased artists. Freedom House Art offers prints, workshops, conferences and talks on freedom as well as educational creative material to institutions. There wil be shows and meetings between artists, scholars and students, but most of all, with people.

So the print walks out to the world- again. The print is not only my instrument for freedom- but now a tool for others to share.

Watch out- Amos might just come your way with some woodtype in hand!

Stolen Voices is now called typeFACE! This is the genius naming by Emily . who wrote in an e-mail: ( edited version )

‘ There are so many great aspects to this project. As I ask other artists to participate with a description of an image they can’t describe, I’m finding that this aspect of uniting artists and talking - at various stages of life, artistic development and working in myriad ways - is becoming a really exciting aspect of the project. Wouldn’t it be great to build of a great archive of these stumbling/articulate/uncertain/strident/humorus/intelligent statements with corresponding facial expressions and typeface? [AH! Maybe we can call it typeFACE …… Emily Candela 16 june 2010

Imagine linking the 500 year old technology of letterpress, shaping the spoken words by the artists in to posters, then projections of their silent, but talking heads next to the prints…As alway s I am not quite sure where this wil take us/ me- but it feels as if the project is opening up something to something greater- like a vista of play.

Amos Kennedy’s work inspires:

” the world is big- full of connections and
ideas to be made. ”

Don’t forget it!

For the full effect of the stolen voices - go to Emily’s blog; http://emilycandela.wordpress.com/2010/06/04/pale-voce/

- and check out our moving heads. In the end these will projected on to our posters ( what is seen here is a rudimentary start up version.

A new project has started to sneak in - about the use of English in Higer Education. I am working with Emily Candela adn we will combine our expressions- printmaking , letter press and video. Language can be used as a tool for exclusion ,and in the UK it seems to be linked to the obsession with the class system. we call it stolen voices- still looking for the latin translation , playing on the academic term ‘Viva voce’ which is an exam carried out through talking - and not writing.

Emerging and older, more established artists will collaborate with us in an experiment to develop ways of thinking and working at the intersection of linguistic and visual representation that addresses the challenges faced by many artists in the area of language. Together we will create a series of text-based prints, therefore bringing language to tangible form.The artists will be filmed- as in a series of moving video portraits. These will be shown projected on the prints in a final exhibition. We also aim to produce an article in the end- returning to the written word.

The artists will collaborate with a group of artists who either experience difficulty with the linguistic requirements of their course or are being forced to speak about their practice in an academic art theory language which is alien to them. At our first meeting, each artist will bring with them an image that they believe defies simple description. The artist will be invited to speak freely about the images. We will then introduce a template for speaking about the images that mirrors the conventions of academic composition. The artists will be asked to use these to present verbal representations of the images, but will be encouraged to amend or disregard the template as they see fit. In this way, they are actively contributing to an experiment in generating a framework for synthesising image and text. The artists’ verbal descriptions will be recorded and transcribed. Selections from these transcriptions will provide the text for a series of typographic prints, created with the artists at the second meeting with them. The prints’ format will be based on the templates mentioned above, and will reflect the artists modifications to these templates.

Background:

This artwork takes as its starting point a central issue in fine art higher education: the difficulties experienced by many art art students in the linguistic articulation of their ideas (Hudson, 2009). In our own experiences working with students, we have witnessed the anxiety, self- doubt and frustration caused by requirements to apply academic language to visual artistic work. We - ourselves as foreigners,one american and one Swede, have found it challenging to modify our language to the British English academic conventions. Many practitioners are examining alternatives to conventional academic writing within art and design higher education (Candela, 2009; Orr et al, 2004). This parallels a larger conversation concerning the relationship between image and text, impacted by postmodern cultural theory (Barthes, 1977) and by 20th and 21st century artists experimenting at the interface of visual and textual representation.

This project is unique in its invitation to artists to experiment with formats for linguistic representation.The resulting prints will represent a record of dialogue and negotiation towards a new conception of the roles of linguistic and visual representation in the world of the fine art establishment.

We are not Sorry for sounding like ourselves.

Less than 3 months to go. Work is developing. The Bristol based group is closer to nature.

This work shows water, and land. Liz is working a series of woodcuts showin a stretch of water from dusk to dawn.

Anna is screen printing with mud collected from the River Avon.

Martine is taking a bird’s eye view of a coast line.

The only landscape available to me is the man made views of London. The Littoral Zone becomes something physical, and the ebb of flow the abstract notions of the arrival of people in to the city. Where as the flotsam of the river Avon in Bristol is mostly bicycles and shopping carts haf submerged in the rich mud, the flotsam of London is the debris of human aspirations. Some victories, then losses and in between just the ordinary dreams and private tragedies sinking in to the mud of time. The river Thames hold the physical remains of past ordinary lives in its grey mud of the Littoral Zone- a pipe head made of clay, coins and leather shoes of Romans and Victorians. The sight of these stir my memories and senses, to come alive in London as an artist while I hold the crisp, cold smell of the Swedish West coast’s water within my being while I bicycle past council buildings. The flotsam of city life pile up among the baby clothes drying on the balconies, where people struggle and dream as the debris of a media society flow in through the satellite dishes.Nature is only an image on a screen.

The Create Center in Bristol focuses on enviromental issues, clean rivers, recycling and the increasing problems of plastic debris.

Our work in the galley will reflect the ethos which concerns a clean enviroment. I hope a visti to its gallery will be a place of both contemplation and flow.

The symposium ‘Art as a Tool for Freedom’ took place on the 20th of May at the Roosevelt Study Center in Middelburg.

It was a day of meetings- between professors in human rights law, history and social science and printmaking. The issue of Freedom made for the wheel, which around the talks spun. Besides freedom- the question was- what could art do for freedom - for human rights?

The previous day Amos Kennedy carried out a letter press workshop on the square as we asked people what freedom meant
to them. Amos had already printed cards with Freedom on it- and people could add their thoughts. In the end, it required direct action by Iris de Leeuw and myself: people were reluctant to write on the cards- and unsure what we actually wanted from them- money? Time? After some gentle coercion , they picked up their pens and really started talking.To me- this proved that we do need freedom from fear.

Freedom from fear of connecting and engaging in ideas with strangers.

John Phillips- from London Printmaking Studio- put on a instant street show with anarchist echoes- and sold the Freedom cards; No one bought freedom.

Next day- Amos concluded the symposium with a talk in the medieval herb garden. He showed posters made with American school children on freedom.
The children had courage- more that the adults on the square.

Freedom House Art is now becoming a reality- through the vision of Iris de Leeuw. This could be the place where the socially engaged print- regains its agency.

On the way back to London- in the train I thought of what wonderful days these had been - filled with meaning, curiosity and the light of good ideas. There, in the train, it was moment of silence when I could be still and inspired again.

The Littoral Zone is quite a hard concept to grasp. It is a space which is always in an in-between stage. Its only constancy is its fluxus. This is difficult to manage emotionally where we grasp for stability, for control which in reality becomes the stagnant pond of things. Why not allow the littoral zones of our lives to provide a rich mud of emerging and vanishing imprints, of meetings of living forms from opposite existences of land and sea.We work to build dams and to controll the currents of living, only letting go when it is part of controlled force.
These thoughts have begun to form the underpinning ideas for my images, as I myself struggle to go with the flow- to remain fluid, to find opportunites in what seems to be murky mud- to understand the Littoral Zone within and to recognize, it is a rich place to be.

Littoral is a show about flow- about the water which arrives and leaves, continuosly changing an inbetween space of land nor water nor sand.

Therefore, the show can not be a static display- but will run in conjunction with a series events and workshops at the Create Centre that might wash over visitors with new experiences…..as follows:
Friday 27th August

Saturday 28th August Exhibition opening ( sometime Between 4 &
7pm)

Saturday 4th September Peter Ford, Paper making workshop ( 11.30 - 1) and Paper folding workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 11th September Phillip Gross poetry reading ( 12 - 1) signing after Relief print workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 18th September Mud printing workshop ( 11.30 - 1) and Mud printing workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 25th September Mono print workshop ( 11.30 - 1) and Mono print workshop ( 2 - 3.30)

Saturday 2nd October Collagraphs / Rubbings workshop (11.30 - 1) and Collagraphs / Rubbings workshop (11.30 - 1)

Thursday 7th October UWE MA Print visit ( 1- 3 ) Possible sustainability print paper w/ S. Hoskins

Saturday 9th October Closing party (2 - 4) and Prize draw

Iris de Leeuw worked in the 1960’s and 70’s with print protest through poster art. Print was previously an easily disseminated and effective visual communication form, but has lost this edge to the web. However, one medium does not have to exclude the other, but can work together calling on combined core strengths to get the message through. Therefore, Iris has developed not only a web place site for protest and positive change through art, but has also masterminded the ‘Art as a Tool for Freedom’ symposium in Holland May 20 2010 at the Roosevelt Academy. Print based activist come together with social scientists to explore freedom.

Print- is still alive. It needs no electricity to happen, just great ideas combined with an ethos. Unplugged- the poster has the potential still to electrify.

Iris writes’ Bring peace into the world with your art.’
For more information go to: www.irisdeleeuw.com then : freedomhouse-art int in the lower right corner on the site.

Enjoy Iris’ print from 1967ish.

I took off to Ornskoldsvik which is a smallish town in North Sweden. 29000 inhabitants, snow drifts, a ski-jump which dominates the edge of the city and one, fine collective printsstudio named ‘The Culture Factory’. I became a true cultural worker assisting master printer Stefano Beccari with a monumental printmaking workshop. The week resulted in a sort of existential detox.My existence became printmaking, conversations and snowlined silence.

The Culture Factory is run by a dedicated voluntary team of people who for 30 years have built towards their vision resulting in a shared working space. It is harmonious and well -equipped.The space is grounded in creativity and community,and I long to return to work, staying in the guest-flat above. Existence is stripped of the big city frenzy,and here it is just about making the image, and it fine to be kind to strangers while letting the universe of imagination unfold and flow within as the town bumbles on next to the fjord. Rivers make this town possible.

That makes me think that this year wil be all about ‘flow’ and water is its central theme. Preparing for the Littoral Show in Bristol and starting work on oversized prints with Stefano Beccari on ’sewage’. The existential detox continues through the medium of printmaking.

And here is the story:
Arriving at Arlanda airport’s train station platform. No chance for a hustle and bustle.

Taking the train from Stockholm Central Station. Last moment for relishing crowds before the emptiness of the north.

First look at ‘The Culture Factory’, perfect for an art-nomad: step of the the train and roll on with a 10 kg wheelie-bag in through the gallery:

Surroundings are suitably snowed in - although this time of the year is supposedly called late-winter-early-spring.

The fjord.

Center of town.

Master printer Stefano Beccari who joyfully battles with monumental prints up to 2.5 meters.At this moment resting.

The heart of the studio- the giant press!

A print drying by one of the eight artist-participants.

I discovered that The Culture Factory has a fully equipped letterpress set-up with an array of presses and an extensive font collections. So I met Maestro Number 2: Christer who helped me completing a five colour mini-print amidst the monumental workshop print activities using a letterpress for linocut relief print.

Maestro Christer at the press reminding me that in print- preparation , registration and perfection is the only way.

Preparing setting up the linocut, and the cradle for the block.In the end- it wasn’t perfect.

And then the end- a series of three prinst on show for one day in the gallery by one of the participants.