The Grey Guide E-Campaign

 

Introducing the Grey Guide E-Campaign — The Grey Guide to ArtistRun Publishing and Circulation is composed of a series of seven briefs written and developed by artist, critic, cultural worker and art librarian Felicity Tayler. Register to our list to receive the biweekly ecampaign, from March 1st to June 21, 2017.

Editorial announcing the Grey Guide launch.

 

 

Forward — What’s at Stake? — Our title, The Grey Guide to Artist-Run Publishing and Circulation, refers to the not-so-familiar category of “grey literature,” a mode of text-based cultural production common to our organizations/institutions. This category includes reference works, manuals, reports, working papers, directories, grant applications and other ephemera.

Read the brief here.

 

 

Brief 01 — What is a Public, What is Publicity? —  Tayler sets the tone for the Grey Guide in offering a set of definitions to help artistled publishers think about how the act of publication creates performative effects […] Because each publishers situation is unique.

Read the brief here.

 

 

 

Brief 02 — From Dissemination to Circulation will emphasize the active role that the publisher must play to ensure a connection with immediate and longterm readerships, whether this publisher is an artistrun centre, an independent small press, or the authors/artists themselves

Read the brief here.

 

 

Brief 03 — Material Conditions — considers the unstable economics of writing and publishing both within and beyond artistrun culture. In Canada and Quebec, fiction and non-fiction writers must learn to navigate the standard practices of multiple publishing milieus, all the while augmenting this activity with other sources of income.

Read the brief here.

 

 

Brief 04a — Moral and Legislative Economies of Artist-Run Publishing — This brief reflects upon why there is a growing movement to explicitly recognize artist-run publishing as a public good, a dematerialized art object, a practice of community building, of knowledge sharing, or as a “gift” to readers.

Read the brief here.

 

 

Brief 04b — Copyright as a Practice of Daily Life for Artists and Artist-Run Publishers — gives an overview of the mechanisms currently in place to ensure the compensation of artists for the use of their intellectual property.

.

 

 

 

Brief 05 — Situating Artist-Run Publishing within Digital Culture – outlines the concept of the “public domain” as both a legal category and a symbolic battleground where international intellectual property law is contested by post-national “free culture” movements, which do not identify with social and economic inequalities arising from the restriction of cultural expression in a networked society.

Read the brief here.

 

 

 

Brief 06 – Resources and Resourcefulness –  presents a “good enough” suite of practical tools, including a lexicon of art publishing terms, which gives an idea of the resources required at various stages of production for print-based publications.

Read the brief and check out the PDF How to Make a Boring Book.

 

 

 

Brief 07 – The Post-Digital Now – proposes advocacy avenues like the development of a writing fee schedule and support for non-literary, creative non-fiction translation, to further recognize art publishing as a distinct artistic form.

.