Biography

Dr Sheena Calvert holds a Master’s degree from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Aesthetics from the University of Greenwich. As a typographer, printmaker and graphic designer by background, her research interests are an extension of her long-standing involvement with fully engaging with the materiality of print, as a form of knowledge about language (both visual and textual). She teaches critical theory and practice of art/design/illustration at Central St. Martins, the London College of Communication and the University of Westminster. Her research workshop/studio, the .918 press, in London, E8, consists of a fully functional letterpress facility for the production of experimental printing and bookworks.

Illustrated Talk

Re/Cut: Forgotten Narratives and Uncommon Knowledge
The Re/Cut project invites artists/illustrators/designers/writers to reinterpret the large collection of letterpress ‘cuts’ at the .918 press in London, and to make an edition of new work, based on these materials. The cuts were gathered over a period of almost 2 decades, while in the process of clearing old print shops, and originate largely from the East Coast of the US. This accidental archive of American ephemeral imagery which ranges between the late 19th, and early-mid-20th century was offered as a departure point for the collaborators’ own interpretation, which had only one restriction: the poster was to be designed without added words (except those found within the cuts themselves). These interpretations recontextualize the archive, and bring to life these intriguing images which in some case have not been printed in many decades. These letterpress ‘cuts’, are physical reproductions of original images/symbols, drawn by anonymous ‘jobbing’ illustrators. They provide an intriguing, unauthorized, ‘folk’ snapshot of the prevailing concerns of the periods in which they were made, as well as reflecting the changing technical processes by which books, posters, advertisements, and printed ephemera were produced. Such images were created for newspapers, advertising, and a wide range of other printed contexts such as posters of local events, ‘social’ communications, and stationery. The images coincidentally pose questions about shifting gender roles, vernacular visual languages, social rules, aesthetic taste, and the changing forms of illustration. As unattributed illustrations, words, and photographs, which have become long detached from their original contexts, they form an archive, a puzzle, and a collective social and historical memory.

Open Folio

Re/Cut: Forgotten Narratives and Uncommon Knowledge
The Re/Cut project invites artists/illustrators/designers/writers to reinterpret the large collection of letterpress ‘cuts’ at the .918 press in London, and to make an edition of new work, based on these materials. The cuts were gathered over a period of almost 2 decades, while in the process of clearing old print shops, and originate largely from the East Coast of the US. This accidental archive of American ephemeral imagery which ranges between the late 19th, and early-mid-20th century was offered as a departure point for the collaborators’ own interpretation, which had only one restriction: the poster was to be designed without added words (except those found within the cuts themselves).