Frameworks

ILSSA

Unrequited Leisure Presents ILSSA: Frameworks, A collaborative exhibition by Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA)

Gallery Hours:
First Saturday from 6-10 pm
Saturdays and Sundays 1-6 pm


About the Artist Collective:

As a union for artists, makers, and creative practitioners of all kinds, ILSSA focuses on improving the immaterial working conditions of our members. ILSSA publishes contemplative tools and resources; organizes participatory projects, exhibitions, and events; facilitates an annual group residency; and observes an annual holiday, the Festival to Plead for Skills. ILSSA seeks to restore the relationship between makers and their tools, makers and their time, and makers and what they make—their lives. ILSSA members’ interests vary widely, from fiber arts to listening and sound practices, from poetry to animation. What unites all members is a valuation of process, exemplified by their motto, As Many Hours as It Takes! 

About the Exhibition:

ILSSA’s projects and publications often take the form of a call-and-response. Calls have included a survey asking members to assess their working conditions as impractical laborers, a workbook inviting members to ruminate on their relationship and experience with time, a chronobiological self-test, a request for member manifestos, and an inventory of essential tools for living. Participation in these projects often leads to additional publications and exhibitions. In this exhibition titled, Frameworks, ILSSA members are asked to reflect on and write about essential supporting structures for creating. Each member will complete their call packet and mail it directly to the gallery for the exhibition.

About the ILSSA Co-Operators:

Local 347 Shop FS Bridget Elmer is an artist, bookmaker, letterpress printer, and coowner of Print St. Pete Community Letterpress. She is a frequent instructor at Ox-Bow, Penland, The Press at Colorado College, and Ringling College of Art and Design. Bridget studied bookbinding, letterpress printing, printmaking, and artists’ books at the Cooper Union, Center for Book Arts, Penland School of Crafts, Asheville BookWorks, and the California Rare Book School. She received her MFA in the Book Arts, as well as her MLIS, from the University of Alabama. She is currently the Letterpress and Book Arts Coordinator at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL, and President of the College Book Art Association. Local 917 Shop RC Emily Larned has been publishing as an artistic practice for over 25 years, when she created her first zine (Muffin Bones) as a teenager. Her work is collected by over 70 institutions and exhibited internationally, and she teaches and lectures widely. She received her MFA in Graphic Design from Yale School of Art, and her self-published handmade books have won design awards from the Type Directors Club (TDC), the Connecticut Art Directors Club (CADC), and the AIGA (50 Books | 50 Covers). She is currently Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. In addition to writing, designing, printing, and publishing, she also knits, embroiders, practices Vipassana meditation, and grows and cooks vegetables. 

More on their website https://impractical-labor.org/…