Cheap + Easy: Zines, Posters, and Alternative Histories
Panel chaired by Vin Caponigro
Description
Though often looked down upon as lesser forms of printmaking, many cheap and easy methods of creating multiples - including photocopying, laser, risograph, and screen printing - maintain a level of accessibility that other print techniques do not, allowing a greater spectrum of voices to disseminate information. This panel will discuss how those in power have used storytelling and reproducible media to control history, and how marginalized communities have used independent publishing to tell their own stories and fight back against oppressive systems.
About the chair
In their interdisciplinary practice, Vin Caponigro creates physical objects, installations, and multiples, as well as writes and facilitates participatory actions. Their work blends accessible and egalitarian concepts with ritual and performance, exploring ideas of restriction and reproduction. Before its dissolution in 2017, they were a founding member of the non-anonymous W.I.T.C.H. Chicago. They frequently facilitate workshops and speak on panels, recently at Harvard University, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Emerson College, the University of Kentucky, Oberlin College, and NYU Florence. They have facilitated numerous participatory performances, recently at Spaceus: Harvard Square, the Cincinnati Art Book Fair, the Future in Minneapolis, and in Boston Common. They currently live and work on occupied Massachusett and Wampanoag land, where they operate Snake Hair Press, an independent publisher of zines and multiples.
Panelists
3GatosPress is a print shop based in Guadalajara Mexico; their flag is the Tortilla Press, a machine used to make tortillas but they use it for linoprints. The experimental printmaking is what they like to do, alternative relief printmaking, to spread the tortilla press word thru the world and they LOVE kitties!
Brett Colley is an artist-educator based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and coordinator of the Printmaking program at Grand Valley State University. Colley earned his MFA at the University of Iowa in 1994, and for nearly 30 years his studio work has followed in the rich tradition of prints as a means of critiquing systems of power, raising awareness, and serving social justice movements.
josh graupera (they/them) is an artist and activist based in Philadelphia, PA. Their practice explores the relationship between visual art and community organizing, using painting, screen printing, zines and facilitation practices. josh is the co-initiator of seed project, a 5-year community arts project in Lancaster, PA, a volunteer organizer with Stadium Stompers, a land justice movement in Philadelphia, PA, a founder of Bonfire Media Collective, a worker-owned media coop in Philadelphia, PA, and the Creative Arts Coordinator with the Youth Art & Self-empowerment Project (YASP), a youth-led organization fighting youth incarceration.
Time
10:30am-12pm Saturday
Location
Kent State University School of Art
Center for Visual Arts (CVA)
Room 165
Wearing face coverings and being up-to-date on Covid-19 vaccinations are strongly recommended at this location.