Ashlee Weitlauf, United States
Civil Disobedience
Letterpress and polymer relief on handmade paper; edition of 38 on handmade paper and 50 on machine made paper.
Typographie et relief en polymère sur du papier fait-main; édition de 38 exemplaires sur du papier fait-main et 50 sur du papier fabriqué à la machine.
23 x 16 x 0.9cm
2005
Fine Printing / Typographie
Artist's Statement:
In the current political arena, history is often overlooked or forgotten. My work is influenced by exploring the history of political dissent starting with some of the first printed pamphlets in America, from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense to Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience, along with present day pamphleteers such as Howard Zinn and Arundhati Roy. In my work I aim to reveal this history in hopes of challenging today’s citizens to not only investigate and question the world we live in, but to also take an active role in society. By printing pamphlets and ephemera in the same vein as the first pamphlets printed in America, my work looks to the past as well as the present to document and bring attention to issues I feel are important. Historically pamphlets were often a chosen format because they were simple in construction and quick to produce, enabling large quantities to be quickly disseminated. I use some of the same methods originally used in the first printed pamphlets. These techniques include handset moveable type printed on handmade paper bound by hand, coupled with current technology such as photo polymer plates and digitally composed texts and images. By choosing to work in this format the viewer is asked to interact with the book, and therefore, develop a relationship with it.