A press press toolkit
Toolkit is available for free online. The print publication is available for purchase through the Printed Matter online store.
WEBSITE
toolkit.press
The Institute for Expanded Research and Press Press are excited to release Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work, a new publication available for free online and for purchase through the Printed Matter online store.
Based on two workshops that gathered Baltimore-based cultural organizers, artists, musicians, and community-oriented practitioners, the project explores the challenges of collective cultural work and shares processes, advice, and resources on overcoming various cultural, financial, and structural obstacles. In centering collective working methods that are so counter to the ideologies and frameworks that are encountered daily in a capitalist society, Toolkit aims to honor and embrace our fundamental interconnectivity and interdependence as human beings. At the heart of this work lies the understanding that wellbeing, integrity, equity, and care is a collective responsibility. We, as the Institute for Expanded Research and Press Press, hold this truth close to our hearts right now, as we collectively grapple with the COVID-19 Pandemic and as forms of inequity and injustice persist beyond this moment. We invite you to build, change, and redefine this toolkit as your own: Why and how do you build cooperative, collective, or collaborative-oriented practices that are grounded in equity, liberation, integrity, and difference?
Toolkit for Cooperative, Collective, & Collaborative Cultural Work is part of Commune Diverge Shift Connect: A Press Press Handbook, a collaboration between the Institute for Expanded Research and Press Press. The project 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.
Toolkit is based on two workshops which gathered Baltimore-based people who are involved in cooperative, collective, or collaborative cultural work, including Allie Linn, Amy Reid, Bonnie Jones, C Kim (E'NB), E Cadoux, Tanya Garcia, Georgia McCandlish, Adriana Monsalve, Haniel Wides, Jacob Marley, Joseph Lee, Khadija Adell, Lu Zhang, Markele Cullins, N'Deye Diakhate, Priya Bhayana, and Rose Buttress. The workshops were facilitated by Valentina Cabezas, Kimi Hanauer, Bomin Jeon, and Bilphena Yahwon.
Toolkit is initiated and composed by Kimi Hanauer using notes, transcriptions, and audio recordings from the workshops and additional research. Toolkit is edited by Lu Zhang and copyedited by Rebekah Kirkman. The digital publication is designed and engineered by Eleni Agapis and the print publication is designed by Kimi Hanauer.
Workshops for Toolkit were supported by the GPL Research Residency and held at the George Peabody Library where Press Press is the 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 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. 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.