Letterpress printing was widely used in printing offices around the world for pamphlets and newspapers until the 1980s, when many industries transitioned to newer technologies. My research explores these moments of technological change, including events such as the Wapping Dispute in the UK, when many printworkers lost their jobs as printing technologies transformed the industry.

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These drop-in sessions accompanied my work in the exhibition "Subject to Disruption", where I exhibited two linocut prints and my first larger woodcut print, alongside a letterpress galley that showed some small reminders I had made for the public to take away. During the show, I wanted this galley to function as a living sculpture, inviting the audience to make their own small reminders, and displaying those instead, until they would be changed again. 

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My reminders included ones such as "All Art is Political", "Rest and Resist", "Slowness is Strength". During the workshops participants were so engaged, and made a wide variety of prints, based on song lyrics, memes, invented sayings, messages for loved ones, and inside jokes. My hope is that while engaging with this laborious process for communication, thoughtfulness and meaning is brought back in the words we write, and the value they hold. 

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I loved seeing how quickly everyone embraced the printing process in its entirety, embracing "mistakes" as happy accidents. It felt so rewarding to demystify this trade, and play with it in a more accessible way. One most glorious example was a participant composing "Watch where you're putting it", and "putting it" ending up backwards (letterpress is often confusing and this is a common mistake), which made so much poetic sense.