THE PEOPLE'S PAPER CO-OP
The People’s Paper Co-op (PPC) is a collective of returning citizens, artists, and community activists. Since August, 2014 the PPC has partnered with Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity (PLSE) to organize and facilitate free community events in North Philadelphia. In each event, hundreds of participants work with lawyers to clear or clean up their criminal records. Participants then print out their records, tear them up, and put them in blenders to create new, blank sheets of handmade paper. Each participant embeds their writing and polaroid portrait into their new sheet. These sheets are being sewn together to create a giant paper quilt and advocacy tool.
www.peoplespaperco-op.com |
THE PEOPLE'S LIBRARY
The People's Library* is an ongoing collaborative project featuring libraries designed, built and authored by community members. The project transforms and repurposes discarded books into blank canvasses for the production and exchange of local histories.In Richmond, VA, in partnership with the Main Branch of the Richmond Public Library, a thousand blank books are being created for anyone in the community to check out, bring home, fill with their histories and bring back to the library to be included in the permanent collection. The resulting installation includes a thousand micro-monuments, becomes the real and symbolic meeting place for alienated publics, and offers sustainable,
collective and critical alternatives for the form and function of public art. www.the-peoples-library.com |
TACTICAL WEAVING: Textiles, Labor, and Community Activism
Hull House Museum, Chicago, IL
Hull House Museum, Chicago, IL

This January The People’s Library was exhibited at Columbia College’s Center for Book and Paper Arts. The exhibit, Social Paper, featured a humbling group of international projects that utilize paper making as a tool for engaging with socio-political issues. As part of the exhibit we did a series of paper-making workshops at Columbia College, the Chicago Zine fest, and a special workshop at the Jane Addam’s Hull House Museum.
For the workshop at the Hull House museum we partnered with Faculty at University of Illinois Chicago who were attempting to negotiate their first contract. For the event, UIC organizers gave us all of the contract negotiations between striking workers and UIC administration, and working with folks from Columbia College's Center for Book & Paper Arts (CBPA) we shredded it and pulped it to make new paper.
The workshop began with UIC organizers describing their work, and ended with participants embroidering the name of a family member or close friend whose labor they thought had been unappreciated.
By bringing together a wide spectrum of ‘workers,’ and engaging with labor on both systemic and personal levels, the event sourced collaborative craftwork as a vehicle for weaving experience, skill sets, and ideas.
For the workshop at the Hull House museum we partnered with Faculty at University of Illinois Chicago who were attempting to negotiate their first contract. For the event, UIC organizers gave us all of the contract negotiations between striking workers and UIC administration, and working with folks from Columbia College's Center for Book & Paper Arts (CBPA) we shredded it and pulped it to make new paper.
The workshop began with UIC organizers describing their work, and ended with participants embroidering the name of a family member or close friend whose labor they thought had been unappreciated.
By bringing together a wide spectrum of ‘workers,’ and engaging with labor on both systemic and personal levels, the event sourced collaborative craftwork as a vehicle for weaving experience, skill sets, and ideas.
THE PEOPLE'S SEWING CIRCLE
The People’s Sewing circle was our first attempt to use the ethos of the People’s Library to engage with something beyond book-making. In lieu of discarded books, participants in two public workshops transformed hundreds of yards of discarded fabric into the People’s Rag Rug.
During the event, participants learned how to make their own rag rug. While sewing, participants engaged in conversation about the unseen labor that goes into the objects we own, and shared stories about objects in their homes that have been imbued with histories. Each rug was then sewn together to create a collective object: one that embodies the shared labor, resources, and history of its producers. |