Into Production! Then and Now

This keynote offers an historical contribution towards two of the questions being asked at Performing Resistance symposium: ‘How can art and academic work produce political resistance? How can a traditional separation between inside/outside, thinking/doing and art/activism be prevented?’ I will draw on the example of the ‘alternative’ printshops set up to support and ‘perform resistance’ between the late 1960s and early 1980s. Many of those involved had been to art school, but renounced the title of artist and its circuits. This phenomenon mostly collapsed by the mid 1990s for reasons economic, social, political and of course new technological means. In recent years, partly inspired by the radical print culture that flowered in the 1960s and 70s, there has been a sort of revival; from newspapers (e.g. Occupied Times and STRIKE!) to pamphlets and screen-printing set ups at protest events. Much of this resurgence has been artist and designer led, especially those interested in ‘socially engaged practice’. My presentation will discuss this earlier history and the current revival in relation to it