Print Group: Works in Progress
The Print Group at Sussex is a collective of researchers, print practitioners, and makers working on the histories, processes, and artefacts of print. Through our scholarship, creativity, and practice, we investigate a range of areas: print media; printing history; publishing cultures; the social, cultural, and labour histories of the book, periodical and print trades; material texts; technologies of replication and reproduction; creative industries.
We undertake collaborative research, organising workshops, masterclasses and talks in relation to these topics, ranging from theoretical and historical investigations, to experiments with the manual skills of printing. The AVÊÓƵ houses and runs a tabletop Albion Press from the 1840s and a small collection of type, cutting tools and printing blocks. We are committed to working with students, visitors and researchers to share and preserve knowledge of printing techniques through historical research and contemporary practice. Our press is used by students and staff to produce original small-press publications.
The Print Group works closely with printers and printmakers, booksellers, museums and archives, both internationally and in the local Sussex area. Group members have collaborated with many external institutions, including The Stationers’ Company, The British Library, the Centre for Printing History and Culture, the Virtual Museum of Printing, the National Printing Heritage Committee, the Printing Historical Society, The British Museum, The Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Society of Wood Engravers. We also work with the AVÊÓƵ's own archival and rare book collections at The Keep.
If you would like to know more about our current activities, or would like to discuss a potential project please email: samuel.solomon@sussex.ac.uk, rachel.stenner@sussex.ac.uk, b.k.stevens@sussex.ac.uk, and/or h.wolf@sussex.ac.uk