After working for several years on researching the history of Women In Focus (1974-1992) and the reason for it’s demise, I’ve finally put together a self-published artist book on the subject: ARClog 2.1: Women In and Out of Focus.

The first few pages of the project summarize the history of the earliest Vancouver-based feminist artist-run centre, and these are followed by 200+ pages of scanned and xeroxed reproductions of the chronological archival data that I consulted from various sources to write the text. The main body of publications is kept at the Crista Dahl Media Library & Archive at VIVO Media Arts Centre, but several key documents were found at the UBC Rare Books Library, in the collection of Dr. Margot Butler, in the Unit/Pitt archive, and in my own personal collection.

One copy of the signed edition of 6 was featured as part of the Garden (a Moniker Press & Brandon Cotter Reading Room) installation presented during the 2015 Vancouver Art/Book Fair, which took place in the Vancouver Art Gallery Annex from October 16 – 18, 2015. I was also manning the Malaspina Printmakers Society table during the fair, where another copy was available for consultation by interested parties. This first edition was bound through Publication Studio Vancouver and they each have custom aerosol front and back cover stencil work.

For more information on the project, please follow the image and text links embedded in this blog post. (A big thank you to Keith Higgins of Publication Studio, and Erika Wilk of Moniker Press for organizing the installation.)