The Main Library Gallery’s current exhibition, Rising Together | Protest in Print, features a few historic examples of protest from Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries. Along with these pieces, such as Thomas Paine’s famous 1776 pamphlet entitled Common Sense (x-Collection 973.3 P14c), more contemporary expressions of protest are also present. One of these books was created right here at the University of Iowa. In 2010, members of the Combat Paper Project visited the University of Iowa Center for the Book for a week-long residency. Julia Leonard, co-curator of the exhibition, was there. 

“There are a number of works [in the exhibit] that I find to be moving and beautiful examples of how print and artistic expression can address social and political issues,” she said. “They can contribute to affecting change, and also provide a ‘snapshot’ of concerns facing particular moments. A piece of personal significance is Paper Soldiers.” (x-Collection N7433.38.C653 P37)

The Combat Paper Project, founded in 2007, “transforms military uniforms into handmade paper.” Their website states: “We believe in this simple yet enduring premise that the plant fiber in rags can be transformed into paper. A uniform worn through military service carries with it stories and experiences that are deeply imbued in the woven threads. Creating paper and artwork from these fibers carries these same qualities. We have found that all of us are connected to the military in a myriad of ways. When these connections are discovered and shared it can open a deeper understanding between people and expand our collective beliefs about military service and war.”

“With us for a week, Combat Paper veterans, local veterans, and UICB faculty and students made paper from military uniforms belonging to participants, printed poetry, prose and images addressing conflict, and produced a collaborative edition,” said Leonard. “During a time when we as a country were confronting the decisions that took us to war, the project brought people from various places and viewpoints together through the sharing of ideas and making of artwork.” The edition was then bound by the UI Center for the Book and added to Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries.

Julia Leonard shared more about the experience of working with the Combat Paper Project in this short video:

 

 

Rising Together | Protest in Print is on display in the University of Iowa Libraries’ Main Library Gallery until January 3, 2020. Access to the Gallery is through the Main Library’s North Lobby, and is always free for the campus community and the general public. Visit lib.uiowa.edu/gallery to check open hours.

This exhibition was curated by Julia Leonard, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa Center for the Book and at the School of Library and Information Science; and Kalmia Strong, Creative Coordinator at the University of Iowa Libraries and Program Director at Public Space One, a nonprofit arts organization in Iowa City. Art pieces from Rising Together: An Exhibition of Artists’ Books, Prints and Zines with a Social Conscience, a traveling exhibit from the College Book Art Association, also feature heavily in the Main Library Gallery alongside Special Collections items. Stay tuned for additional behind the scenes videos from the curators!

When Julia Leonard was approached by the College Book Arts Association (CBAA) about hosting their traveling exhibition, Rising Together: An Exhibition of Artists’ Books, Prints and Zines with a Social Conscience, she knew it would be a great fit for the Main Library Gallery and a meaningful way to connect items from the University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections to contemporary works. She invited Kalmia Strong to co-curate the exhibition, and together they decided to pair select juried pieces from the CBAA exhibition with carefully chosen works from Special Collections. In addition to Special Collections items, they also chose to include zines from the Public Space One Zine Collection. 

The exhibition overall features artist books, prints, zines, sculptural bookworks, altered books, chapbooks, broadsides, protest signs and banners, and historical examples of printed dissent. These real protest pieces give activism a visual voice, and comment on politics, power, war, immigration, the environment, human rights, and much more.

Zines

Underground and alternative publishing models have been critical to activists, dissidents, and artists for hundreds of years. One of these methods of publication, the zine, surfaced in the 1930s as way for fans of science fiction to trade ideas, fan fiction, art, and more. In the decades that followed, this type of underground self-publication began to gain a wider appeal.

But what is a zine, exactly? Zines in general are self-published, and typically cheaply-produced, publications which have a diverse history and reach. Their most distinguishing trait is that they are driven by the passions of the maker, whether those passions are political, related to fandom, or are responses to mainstream culture. Rising Together | Protest in Print displays a selection of zines drawn from the Public Space One Zine Collection, which features personal zines, and zines concerning anarchist and radical politics dating mostly from the 1990s and 2000s.

On display: 

Strong Hearts, Rod Coronado 
Force Fed, Miss Kristie
Chainbreaker, Shelley Lynn Jackson
American Dream: Free Enterprise, Seth M. Ferranti

Sharing the case with these zines are a few examples of Cartonera publications and samizdat. Cooperative Cartonera publications were pioneered by the Eloísa Cartonera collective following Argentina’s 2001 economic crisis, and now are popular through Central and South America and Europe. Cartonera books are made using inexpensive printing methods and feature uniquely hand-painted cardboard covers sources from cartoneros, or cardboard collectors. They usually contain literary texts, some of which are politically oriented. Samizdat was a dissident underground publishing endeavor in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc countries following Joseph Stalin’s death. Works protesting the suppression of freedom of expression and other unsavory policies, or works containing material deemed “subversive,” were often produced by hand-copying or by using a typewriter and carbon paper. While most samizdat was written, underground music/audio and visual art were also part of this movement.

On display: 

Poesia y Politica: antología de poesía irreverente, Eloísa Cartonera, 2012
Ayotzinapa: Desaparicio Political, Pensaré Cartoneras, 2014
Russian Samizdat Art, Charles Doria, editor; Willis Locker and Owens; New York, NY; 1986

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Rising Together | Protest in Print is on display in the University of Iowa Libraries’ Main Library Gallery until January 3, 2020. Access to the Gallery is through the Main Library’s North Lobby, and is always free for the campus community and the general public. Visit lib.uiowa.edu/gallery to check open hours.

This exhibition was curated by Julia Leonard, Associate Professor at the University of Iowa Center for the Book and at the School of Library and Information Science; and Kalmia Strong, Creative Coordinator at the University of Iowa Libraries and Program Director at Public Space One, a nonprofit arts organization in Iowa City. Excerpts from the exhibition’s annotated guide to items from the University of Iowa Special Collections were included in this blog post. Stay tuned for additional behind the scenes videos from the curators!