March 30, 4:00 PM–6:00 PM
With members working from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, Justseeds Artist Cooperative operates both as a unified collaboration of similarly minded printmakers and as a loose collection of creative individuals with unique viewpoints and working methods. Justseeds is one of the exhibiting artist/activist collectives in Franklin Street Works’ group exhibition, “Collective Action Archive: Redux,” which is on view from February 9 – September 8, 2019. Artist Shaun Slifer, a longtime member of Justseeds, will be in conversation with Franklin Street Works creative director, Terri C Smith, discussing the collective’s work, Slifer’s personal practice, and the variety of ways art and activism can intersect. Slifer will also share a few Justseeds prints that visitors can handle and view. This free, public event takes place at Franklin Street Works (41 Franklin St., Stamford, CT) on Saturday, March 30 from 4-6pm and includes a wine reception. The program is sponsored in part by the City of Stamford CAPP grant.
About Justseeds
Justseeds is a decentralized, worker-owned cooperative of thirty artists throughout North America. Justseeds members primarily produce handmade prints and publications which are distributed through their website and at conferences and events related to social and environmental movements. Members also work individually as graphic designers for and within a broad swath of social and environmental activist causes in the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. As a collective body, Justseeds has produced several gallery exhibitions of both print work and collaborative sculptural installation. Justseeds was founded in 1998 by member Josh MacPhee as an internet-based store and distribution point for graphics that MacPhee, his friends, and associated groups were producing.Following the 2006 collapse of Clamor magazine, which was then handling Justseeds mail-order distribution, MacPhee sought to organize several artists with which he already had a working relationship into a cooperative entity that would expand to include other artists with equal stakes in the new project. Originally launched as Justseeds/Visual Resistance Collective in 2007, the name has since been shortened to Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative. Justseeds ran a distribution center, consisting of their online store and an internal archive, from the basement of a private home in Portland, Oregon from 2007 until 2010. In May 2010, operations were moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.