American art collective Big Ink will bring their large printing press to the FOFA Gallery.
On Saturday, November 18, The Big Tuna will be installed in the atrium just outside the FOFA Gallery. The giant mobile press, run by the American-based collective Big Ink, will be the centrepiece of Surface Inc., a one-day live public printing event that explores the collaborative and democratic potential of the woodcut.
“Big Ink runs a fully functional mobile print shop that travels across North America, offering artists and the general public the chance to create large-scale prints,” says FOFA Gallery director Jennifer Dorner.
The press is designed to print large scale woodcuts and everyone who comes to the exhibition will have the chance to get some ink on their hands.
While Big Ink is responsible for orchestrating the group show and visual performance aspect of the event, Surface Inc. is a collaboration between the American collective, artist and part-time Studio Arts instructor Bonnie Baxter, her students in the Print Media program and the FOFA Gallery. The Fine Arts Student Alliance also provided the funding to realize the initiative.
The printing press in the digital age
Baxter first approached Dorner about inviting Big Ink to Concordia.
“We thought about the evolution of communications and this idea of going back to the physical reality, real space, real time, and looking at the significance of the printing press in the context of a public forum.”
One aim of the event is to explore the significance of the printing press and the history of public communication, especially in the age of social media and fake news, Dorner explains.
“What does it mean to carve out a message – quite literally – and to consider the marks that we are putting out into the world?”