Printing Workshop with Shannon Gerard

Students participated in a two-part program led by Art Farm exhibiting artist Shannon Gerard. On the first visit, Gerard delivered an artist talk and led a discussion that addressed food and print production and distribution, small-scale farming, land stewardship, and countercultural farming and printmaking. As a group, the class considered on how these topics related to content in their course syllabus. Building on the knowledge gained in the first visit, in the second part of the program, Gerard held a workshop on various printmaking techniques. Collaboratively, students created a zine using these techniques, responding to the themes they discussed earlier with Gerard and reflecting on their own relationships with the land.

Shannon Gerard crochets (a lot), makes books, quilts political protest banners, and produces site-specific textile installations. As a professional mischief maker, her public/pedagogical projects emphasize the materials and ethos of independent publishing as social-political engagements. Gerard is an Associate Professor in Publications and Print Media at OCAD University and a part time farmer at Small Spade Farm. Current projects include Plant Parenthood, a new farm-based publishing imprint that so far includes a radical seed subscription club and zines about herb production; and an upcoming book series exploring the relationships between small scale farming, food sovereignty, climate action, radical pedagogy, and liberation movements.