Join this one-day linocut workshop led by artist Minna Henriksson in the context of the Kiila Feminist Archive as part of Editorial Tables: Reciprocal Hospitalities.

The workshop is open for both experienced and beginner printmakers; and for those with an interest in printmaking as a tool for communicating poetics and pragmatics in context of grassroots organising.

The group will be small-scale with up to 8 contributors to enable discussion and reflection throughout the day; and for everyone to complete a print. All materials will be provided.

Throughout the day, Minna Henriksson will open up methods of linocut printing drawing upon imagery in the exhibition. Together you will make use of simple, one-colour designs to explore mark-making, text and image in the production of your own linocut prints. There will be time to discuss and respond to the content and context surrounding the Kiila Feminist Archive; including a range of statements, poetics and slogans that have been gathered over the course of the exhibition’s public programme, in relation to the archive as it resonates in the present.

The title of this workshop cites and celebrates the book of the same name, Rolling Our Own: Women as Printers, Publishers and Distributors, by Eileen Cadman, Gail Chester and Agnes Pivot, published by Minority Press in 1981. Offering an insight into feminist publishing activities in the UK in the early 1980s, the book highlights grassroots printing presses, bookshops and magazines and demonstrates the ways in which the Women’s Liberation Movement made many of these activities possible.

About Kiila Feminist Archive:
The Kiila Feminist Archive is an archive-as-artwork by artist Minna Henriksson. A new iteration of the archive is currently on display at The Showroom as part of the current exhibition, Editorial Tables: Reciprocal Hospotalities. The work involves a long-term and ongoing process of research into the early years of the Kiila artists’ and writers’ association in Finland, which has been running for over eighty years. ‘Kiila’ translates to ‘The Wedge’ from Finnish to English.

The Kiila Feminist Archive is compiled of materials which foreground intersecting feminist and leftist issues which were fundamental to the founding of Kiila; but which have been obscured, lost or edited out of its official histories. As an active current member of Kiila, Minna Henriksson continues re-tracing, translating and subjectively situating these feminist orientations through the fiction writing - novels, poems and short stories - of the organisation’s founding female members.

You can read more about the Kiila Feminist Archive and Henriksson’s wider practice here

This workshop is taking place in the context of two interconnected programmes:

Editorial Tables: Reciprocal Hospitalities at The Showroom is an exhibition and public programme bringing together the publishing practices of Ruth Beale, Sezgin Boynik: Rab-Rab Press, Minna Haukka & Kristin Luke: The Mobile Feminist Library, Minna Henriksson, Rose Nordin, and Elham Rahmati & Vidha Saumya: NO NIIN Magazine. Editorial Tables celebrates the production and dissemination of knowledge through the act of independent, experimental and artist-led publishing, with a focus on intersecting feminist and decolonial perspectives. The project involves a range of publishing, archiving, print and distribution practices by artists, curators and art workers; bringing these into relation and dialogue in the lead-up to the realisation of the exhibition at The Showroom.

Editorial Tables is a collaborative project between The Showroom and Frame Contemporary Art Finland, building upon a long-term process of curatorial exchange following the inaugural Gathering for Rehearsing Hospitalities 2019, convened by Frame in Helsinki, Finland; and leading to the establishment of a new partnership with the Finnish Institute in the UK and Ireland. The exhibition and public programme are co-curated by Lily Hall at The Showroom and Yvonne Billimore & Jussi Koitela at Frame.

Together Again:
Together Again is an expansive art project fostering gatherings, workshops, intercultural dialogues and socially engaged art, organised by the Finnish Academic and Cultural Institutes across the world. Together Again presents six commissions to audiences in Amsterdam, Brussels, Helsinki, London, Madrid, New York, Oslo, Paris, and Porto, as well as online. The project takes place throughout 2023 and culminates in a one-day festival held in Helsinki, Finland on 8 September 2023.