Administered by The Institute for Expanded Research and hosted by the George Peabody Library, The GPL Research Residency provides onsite workspace, project support, and access to the staff, collection, and resources of the George Peabody Library to support the research, development, and presentation of new work by artists, writers, poets, musicians, filmmakers, and other creative practitioners with a specific interest in engaging the collection, history, and space of the George Peabody Library.

CURRENT ARTIST-IN-RESIDENCE

Press Press is an interdisciplinary publishing initiative established in 2014. Press Press's publishing practice is organized around two key goals; first, to shift and deepen the understanding of voices, identities, and narratives that have been suppressed or misrepresented by the mainstream, so far focusing on immigration and race in the United States; and second, to build networks of relationships through publishing practices centered on self-representation and gathering. Through an understanding of publishing as the act of gathering a public, Press Press’s streams of work include public cultural programming, an open-access publishing studio that’s based on an Exchange Economy, youth publishing workshops in an immigrant & refugee only space, and the ongoing production of print and digital publications. Press Press operates out of a storefront studio and library in Baltimore, MD and a production space in Los Angeles, CA.

The library has acquired Press Press’s complete body of work which is available to the public during library hours. From January through September of 2019, the George Peabody Library and the Institute for Expanded Research presented Commune Diverge Shift Connect: A Press Press Chronicle, a public display of the Press Press archive.

Expanding the library’s role of collection and archive, Press Press has dedicated their research residency to activating the library as a place to gather artists and cultural organizers to workshop and produce a new publication titled Commune Diverge Shift Connect: A Press Press Handbook that explores the nuances of Press Press’s approach to publishing.

Handbook develops, collects, and shares emergent models and methodologies for collective work that aid in the efforts of cultural organizers, provoking the question: What are the conditions necessary for cultivating and sustaining ethical and compassionate frameworks for being with and cooperating with others in the world? The full publication, which includes contributions by Cameron Shaw, Lynnette Miranda, Devin Morris, Yellow Jackets Collective, among others, will be released in Fall 2020.

As a preview, Press Press and IER released an excerpt: Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work. Based on two workshops that gathered Baltimore-based cultural organizers, artists, musicians, and community-oriented practitioners, Toolkit explores the challenges of collective cultural work and shares processes, advice, and resources on overcoming various cultural, financial, and structural obstacles.

The GPL Research Residency was initiated in 2015 by Lu Zhang, artist and founder of IER, in collaboration with Paul Espinosa, the library’s books curator. After attending a lecture at the George Peabody Library, Lu approached Paul and asked for access to the collection in hopes of producing a new site-specific project. Supported by a Rubys Grant from The Robert W. Deutsch Foundation via the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance, the resulting project, topo(log) typo(log), is a series of six books documenting Lu’s yearlong studio residency at the George Peabody Library. The six volumes were acquired and cataloged by the George Peabody Library, becoming a part of the permanent collection.

The George Peabody Library was founded in 1857. In that year, George Peabody, a Massachusetts-born philanthropist, dedicated the Peabody Institute to the citizens of Baltimore in appreciation of their “kindness and hospitality,” at the beginnings of his business and banking career. The Library was designed by Baltimore architect Edmund G. Lind, and opened its doors in 1878. Renowned for its striking architectural interior, the Peabody Stack Room contains five tiers of ornamental cast-iron balconies. Today part of the Special Collections division of The Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries, it contains over 300,000 volumes primarily from the 18th and 19th centuries, but also includes a great many Renaissance and subsequent imprints. Highlights include: Books of Hours, first editions of Copernicus and Galileo, 16th Century Herbals, Diderot’s Encyclopédie , early editions of Don Quixote, children’s books, and many other beautifully printed books. Maintaining the provisions of Mr. Peabody’s original gift, the George Peabody Library is a non-circulating collection open to the general public.