The role of editorial practices and small-scale presses in artistic research: Workshop

This is the first of a series of workshops address the role of editorial practices and small-scale presses as: (i) dimensions of artistic research; and (ii) as part of self-organisation / “artist-led” culture and the politics (small “p”) of infrastructure.(1) These events are part of a wider research process on organisational imaginaries and targeted at masters students, PhDs and senior researchers. 

These two events are also shared by two courses: (i) the masters level “On Friendship and the Political Imaginary” course and (ii) the doctoral level introductory course “Theoretical Constructs in Artistic Research” for PhD researchers in artistic research. These events are also open to colleagues and students on other programmes, and any interested members of the public.   

In the first workshop we introduce some perspectives on the specificity of editorial practices and small-scale presses within the broad artistic research field. The first event will focus on the specific editorial ethos in two case studies: (i) Florin Bobu and Livia Pancu have produced a high volume of small run (editions of 100 to 200) books in conjunction with artist residencies, projects and exhibitions using a rough-and-ready production process that is realised in conjunction with a wider set of reading group practices (tranzit.ro /iasi).(2) These volumes have a very specific circulation within a wider community of artists, researchers and local arts-engaged publics. (ii) Khashayar Naderehvandi and Julia Ravanis will present the publishing platform Glänta (https://www.glanta.org/about/) and a specific experiment in commissioning literary essays from scientific researchers. 

The second event will focus on three experiments in publishing practices around ‘live research processes’ across contemporary art. Nick Aikens will present the ‘Towards Collective Study in Times of Emergency’ as a combined practice of collaborative study from his work as Managing Editor and Research Responsible for L’Internationale Online. Two other researchers working in this space of editorial and small independent presses will also present as part of the programme in December. (Full programme available on 1 September 2025.) These workshops are an associated initiative of CAPIm. 

Please book here if you would like to join the workshop online.

Please note that a third event in the series is planned for Spring 2026. 

(1) See for example Marina Vishmidt (2024) “From Speculation to Infrastructure: Material and Method in the Politics of Contemporary Art” OnCurating.org Issue 58. (March).  Vishmidt writes:   

From the beginning of my involvement in the field of art and cultural production, whether I was practising as an academic, a writer, an organiser, an editor, my focus has always been, in one way or another, on conditions of possibility, whether those conditions are considered formal, social, economic, historical, or ontological. … In other words, since before the beginning, my experience and thus my understanding of culture has been collective, with the social and personal dimensions always embedded in the conceptual. Because my entry to participation was at first in zine culture, which was very much defined by riot grrrl, punk, and infinite configurations of both projects and structures that were diy, the artistic and political, material and method, were co-constitutive; the milieu in its positioning was defined by antagonism, not just politically on specific issues in a right-wing cultural environment, but toward the modes of individualised celebrity and mystified creativity typical of mainstream culture. Thus, it was always clear that the ways of organising artistic production were as critical and political as anything that could be isolated as a work or as a product, and in fact the distinctions between these, which can also be read along the process/product binary, were always contingent and matters of practice and proximity.” 

https://www.on-curating.org/issue-58-reader/from-speculation-to-infrastructure-material-and-method-in-the-politics-of-contemporary-art.html 

(2) Tranzit.ro in Iasi has published more than 30 volumes in the last decade. These are in editions of 200 typically, and are not digitally disseminated or centrally archived online. Here is an example of a publication linked to research on self-organisation: https://www.fest.md/en/events/exhibitions/oberliht-association-and-the-druzhba-collective—tranzit-ro-iasi-at-the-house-of-zemstvo in describing this publication agenda they write:  

The Ways of Organization project aims to present various ways of self-organization in the field of independent culture in the cities of Chisinau, Iași and Belgrade, contributing to a better understanding of the role of cultural civic society in order to form an alternative discourse to that promoted either by state public institutions or by the commercialized sector of culture. It also emphasizes the need to document the activity of the Oberliht Association and other art collectives and organizations in the Republic of Moldova, which cannot afford to carry out a regular editorial activity. In this regard, the publication “Ways of Organization, Oberliht Association & Druzhba Collective @ tranzit. ro/Iași”, offers a less classic example of how a history of (local) art can be written in a collective, shared and assumed way.