25th/ 27th and 28th January 2016 - Mail Art Project with Leicester University MA Curation Students

Myself, Nina (my fellow litho fellow!) Sumiko Eadon and Theo Miller ( two other artists who are also residents at LPW) spent an interesting 3 days collaborating with 20 MA Art Museum and Gallery students from Leicester University. Five students were each assigned an artist and their brief was to select a print that each artist had made and consider a means of disseminating it as a mail art project. After a short and interesting lecture by Dr Isobel Whitelegg  about the mail art movement we were divided into our groups to discuss how each artists' work might best be curated and disseminated. I had a very interesting and multinational group with 3 students originating from China another from Chile and another from Switzerland.

                                           
                                                           My group of students

I showed the students several examples of my work, (all lithographs focusing on Brutalist architecture - specifically Park Hill the Grade II * listed Sheffield council estate). The group then aimed to find fellow artists or institutions that might have a possible shared interest in my concerns with the idea of sending them a print through the post which might facilitate future dialogue or collaboration.
Here is the print they selected:

We were limited to the number of people that we could send the prints to as I only had 6 proofs of this print- so  3 arists and 3 institutions were chosen. The students came up with some text to accompany the print - a short statement and bio about myself and an email account that the recipients could respond to the work if they felt so inclined.

Our next issue was to design an envelope to send the print in and we came up with the following design:

I stuck the prints on a square of mountboard to give them some support and also blind embossed  a piece of plastic I had found which replicated the banisters of the balconies at Park Hill to give the envelope some interest.

                                    Plastic used to blind emboss a decorative border



 A brown luggage tag was added to seal the envelope and it was stamped 'Original Lithograph' using letter press and an LPW stamp.
Here is the finished product:

                   
                              Finished product with blind embossed decorative strip and tag


The envelope was then placed in a brown envelope and posted - we will await any response with interest!