Tuesday 3 February 2026, 4.00-6.00pm (GMT)
This is an online event. Register for the Zoom here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_w8O119ivRQWOjrS4oTrQjA
Meet Me in the Middle:
collaborative printmaking and lessons in democratic thinking in Canada and South Africa
Speakers:
Jenn Law, social anthropologist & artist, Toronto
Jillian Ross, Master printmaker, Saskatoon
Invited Discussant:
Jacqui Ramrayka, ceramicist and educator, London
Abstract:
Drawing on experiences of working in both Canada and South Africa, Jenn Law and Jillian Ross (a Master printmaker) will reflect on the ways collaboration informs their overlapping practices. Taking the form of an exchange, print will be discussed as a material practice-based strategy for thinking democratically. As the original “social media” and as a reproductive technology, print has long been considered a strategic tool for disseminating knowledge, transcending ideological and geographic boundaries, and facilitating social activism. Reflecting on “mastery” in craft as both fundamentally collaborative and experimental, Law and Ross will discuss the social and logistical dynamics of working with technologies, materials and others, often across diverse media and great distances, to find a “middle ground” for making. In this, as in democracy itself, the middle ground is not at a fixed point, but rather a moving target, offering important lessons in navigating uncertainty and shared problem solving.
Biographical note:
Jenn Law is an artist and anthropologist based in Toronto, Canada. Working across print-based media, Law’s multi-disciplinary practice explores cultural ecologies and processes of material storytelling. She holds a PhD in Anthropology from SOAS, University of London, UK, a BA in Anthropology from McGill University, Montreal, and a BFA from Queen’s University, Kingston. Law has exhibited her work internationally and has published widely on contemporary art and print culture, working as a lecturer, curator, and editor in Canada, the UK, and South Africa. She is the co-founder of the experimental publishing platform, Arts + Letters Press, with Penelope Stewart, and is currently working on a book and digital archive project with Jillian Ross Print focusing on collaborative print culture in Canada.
Jillian Ross is a collaborative Master printer based in Saskatoon, Canada. She holds a BFA from the University of Saskatchewan. From 2003–2020, Ross ran the David Krut Workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa, collaborating with over 100 local and international artists. During that time, Ross became one of artist William Kentridge’s primary print collaborators, completing over 200 prints to date. In 2021, Ross and her partner, Brendan Copestake, founded Jillian Ross Print (JRP) in Saskatoon, a collaborative print studio and publisher working primarily with South African and Canadian artists, studios, institutions and galleries to develop print projects, exhibitions, art workshops and talks. In 2024, JRP installed Live Editions, a working print studio at the Remai Modern art museum, to showcase the live editioning of their latest large-scale collaborations with Kentridge, based on his theatrical production, The Great Yes, The Great No.
Jacqui Ramrayka is a British-Guyanese artist and educator exploring themes of identity, home and belonging through acts of making. She graduated from the Royal College of Art (RCA) in 2023 and was the Adobe Global Ceramics Artist-in-Residence at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A, London) in 2024. Jacqui is currently focussing on the ability of clay to transcend cultural barriers. Her V&A exhibition and residency responded in part to a number of ‘clay and conversation’ workshops held at the V&A, MoMA (NY) and the Gardiner Museum (Toronto). Artefacts are charged with stories and associations; through conversation and working in clay, the participants explored how these are used to house memories.
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Artistry@Work is an online Seminar Series in the Anthropology of Artists & Artisans, running 2024–2026
Maison des Sciences de l’Homme–Université Clermont Auvergne, in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute
Organisers: Dr Raphaël Blanchier & Professor Trevor Marchand
This seminar series in anthropology explores the situated practices of ‘artistry at work’ and, more broadly, the working lives and career trajectories of artists and artisans plying their trades in regions around the globe. The scope of the series also encompasses studies of occupations not conventionally categorised as “artistic” but that nevertheless foster creativity among (some) practitioners and even accommodate the development of “artist” identities.
Find all events in the series here: https://therai.org.uk/series/artistrywork/
