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Creators/Authors:
Phillips, Ciara
Abstract:
Workshop (2010-ongoing) is an exhibition foregrounding the potential of ‘making together’ as a means of negotiating ideas around labour and collective work. It is informed by research into the history of London-based print collectives such as See Red Women’s Workshop and The Poster Workshop, and is a development of Workshop in previous manifestations at Kunstverein Hamburg (2010) and Spike Island, Bristol (2012).
Commissioned by The Showroom, London, Workshop (2010-ongoing) explores both the solo and collective strands of my practice. The exhibition combines a new installation of screenprints on newsprint and large-scale works on cotton with a two-month temporary print studio sited in the gallery over the course of the exhibition. Throughout October and November 2013 guest artists, designers and local women’s groups were invited to bring their different knowledge and experiences of working together to the Workshop to collaborate on making prints together.
By simultaneously presenting finished artwork, and artwork in the process of production, Workshop (2010-ongoing) invites visitors to the gallery to consider their relationship not only to the art on view, but also to the processes of discussion, thought and labour that bring it into being. The intention is not to illustrate or perform the making of art, but to use the context and support structure of the gallery, and the duration of the exhibition to forge new relationships, discussion and artworks, and to deepen and extend previously established collaborative relationships to explore questions around labour, collective work and the experimental and wider uses of print.