Printmaking Communities at the Edge of Chaos

The theme for the conference, ‘The Printmakers Voice’, and the notion of a ‘Post-pandemic Voice’, has prompted reflection upon the previously taken-for-granted social and material aspects of printmaking now brought into sharp focus. Utilising ideas from complexity theory and alternative geographies within this paper we consider how the printmaking community we are part of has evolved and how the printmaker's voice and the post-pandemic voice meet.  Printmaking is an integral part of the BA (Hons) Fine Art course at the Wolverhampton School of Art. With introductory workshops in the first year, developing into an advanced ‘experimental printmaking and photography’ workshop in the second year. In 2016-17 a ‘Print Club’ developed out of this formal teaching and learning space into weekly sessions on Wednesday evenings. The Club brings together students and staff across a range of courses (not solely fine art) who have a specific interest in pursuing printmaking. There are no set agendas, and print club members work alongside each other on their projects in a supportive environment. Some regulars come each week and those who drop in. Some are trying to realise a project and those who want to sit and chat. Recognising the impacts of space and place on social cohesion and voice, we borrow from feminist geographer Doreen Massey, who stated that ‘space is a product of inter-relations between people and place’[i], in which different trajectories co-exist and are always under construction. Collective moments of social interaction orbit around printing presses, spaces of multiplicity embedded within material practices. [i] Massey, D. (2005) For Space. (London: Sage Publishing).