Print Festival Scotland

Scotland has a rich, diverse and unique heritage in printmaking. All the major cities and many of the more rural towns have public access print studios, which have for decades provided their communities with world class facilities and expertise in printmaking as a medium of creative expression, education and social inclusion. Scotland’s universities and art and design schools have also maintained first class print departments, allowing generations of arts undergraduates students, and academic staff to enhance their artist development and practice though the diverse discipline of print.

 

In 2013 the city of Dundee hosted the ‘Impact 8 – International Printmaking Conference’, bringing over four hundred and fifty delegates from over thirty one countries together to discuss, and celebrate their knowledge and practice in printmaking. Previous conferences have been hosted in cities such as Bristol, Helsinki, Johannesburg, Berlin and Melbourne and is considered to be the largest academic print conference in the world. Impact 8 provided the platform to launch Print Festival Scotland, which seeks to celebrate and showcase Scotland’s printmaking heritage.

 

As well as the inaugural year in 2013 , Print Festival Scotland has hosted a series of national events in 2015 and 2016. These festivals provided a platfrom to showcase the diverse reach of printmaking; from community and public outreach projects, through to hosting exhibitions for international visiting artists to Scotland.

 

2017 saw a slight change in format, with Print Festival Scotland collaborating with the Dundee Design Festival. Situated at the DC Thomson’s old print factory at West Ward Works Building, ‘Print City’ was Print Festival Scotland’s immersive installation made from hundreds of hand printed card shapes. It is intended ‘Print City’ will travel to other locations across Europe or even further a field, where it will collect more hand printed imagery relating to it’s host city’s culture and heritage.

Top image: There Will Be New Rules Next Week  – Sister Corita, Dundee Contemporary Arts – 2013

 

Wee Printathon  – 2013

Crawl Inclusive: Catrin Jeans & participating artists– 2013

Rack Space: Joanna Robson, Dundee Contemporary Arts – 2015

Oak:  David Faithfull, Pig Rock Bothy / National Galleries – 2015

Cosmological Confabulations: Jo Milne, Hannah McClure Centre – 2016

Tweet Box: Cork and Limerick Printmakers, Cooper Gallery / DJCAD – 2016