March 25 – April 18 2020

CMYKings, Homie House Press, Genderfail, Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA), Jesse Malmed, Passenger Pigeon Press, Temporary Services, and Breanne Trammell

Curated by Leah Mackin, Better Together strives to create an active Reading Room, where the Wells College community is invited to handle, read, and share an assortment of projects and artworks that create, support, and engage with communities through the power of print. The artists and publishers represented in this exhibition utilize serialized narratives, submission-based projects, iterative gestures, and documentary methods to produce bookworks, in an expanded definition of publishing. The works remind us of the importance of a supportive and encouraging community. Reading may be thought of as a solitary practice, but perhaps under the right circumstances it is better together.

Leah Mackin is a visual artist and educator who explores themes of reflection, response, and re-creation through performative publishing projects. Mackin holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA in Printmaking+Book Arts from The University of the Arts. Her work has been exhibited widely, and is held in numerous collections. She is Assistant Director and Academic Coordinator at the Book Arts Center at Wells College.

This exhibition is organized in recognition of Mackin’s role as the Victor Hammer Fellow in the Wells College Book Arts Center during 2018-2019. Mackin has since assumed the role of Academic Coordinator and Assistant Director of the Book Arts Center.  The Victor Hammer Fellowship was established in 1998 to bring emerging book artists to the Wells Book Arts Center for a two-year teaching and production residency.