Salon for a Speculative Future – Women Artists’ Print Portfolio Exhibition (Sept – Oct 2022)

At UWE Library, Bower Ashton Campus, Study Space

21st September – 31st October 2022

In conjunction with: IMPACT 12, Multidisciplinary Printmaking Conference, 21 – 25 September 2022, hosted by the Centre for Print Research, Bristol, UK.

Co-curated by Monika Oechsler and Sarah Bodman.

Artists:

Abigail Reynolds _ Angie Butler _ Catherine Ade _ Conway and Young _ Harriet Bowman _ Huma Mulji _ Janice Kerbel _ Johanna Love _ Karen Russo _ Koushna Navabi _ Liane Lang _ Lubaina Himid _Magda Stawarska-Bevan _ Monika Oechsler _ Nick Grellier and Emily Lucas _ Oona Grimes _ Sammy Paloma _ Sophy Rickett _ Tracy Hill _ Young In Hong. 

Inaugurated by artist/curator Monika Oechsler in March 2019 in celebration of Women’s History Month the Salon for a Speculative Future serves as a platform for cross-generational and cross-disciplinary creative exchange.

For this new iteration, a Women Artists’ Print Portfolio, the Salon for a Speculative Future invited twenty artists to consider the question: How to be in the future? Imagining a positive future is inspired by Rebecca Solnit’s historical analysis of the productive tensions between disruption and transformation and her suggestion that they bring forth positive change. Each participating artist has contributed a bespoke print and a text for the publication accompanying the print portfolio in which they share positive future thinking. The publication is funded by UWE and will be printed by Impact Press, UWE and launched together with the print portfolio during Women’s History Month in March 2023. The mission of the Salon for a Speculative Future is to exhibit contemporary women artists’ work widely and in an accessible format. Hence the Salon Artists’ Print Portfolio will be exhibited in national and international educational institutions, libraries and bookshops, and bequeathed to two major archives.

Featured image credit: Warning Stamp 2022, Silkscreen on Pure Dutch Arctic paper, 400 x 275 mm, © Lubaina Himid