A collaborative workshop with Jill Eastland (artist and activist), Redell Olsen (writer and artist) and Susan Mealing (psychotherapist). Exploring the theme of courage to make handmade books through drawing, text and collage.
The workshop gives priority to women who are Asylum Seekers and Refugees but also invites Migrants and People who support refugees. Come along to make meaningful projects and spread some courage through art.
Monday 18th May, 2026era of heroes / heroes of error, 2003 (Bookartbookshop, London).
(Getting more relevant not less since the first time I showed this piece https://filmpoems.wordpress.com/ scroll down to see it with performance at Bookartbookshop… more than 20 years ago).
Upcycled corset, paper, ribbon, packing tape, paint, graphite and print.
Edition of one
For the Corset Revival Project curated by Andrea Djilali of the Circular Fashion Incubator CiC and Dr. Esther Pugh at Leeds Beckett University, this project aims to turn “fast fashion waste” into curated art and wearable, contemporary garments.
Rough/ruff books: a D-I-Y concertina poetics as art writing with Redell Olsen
The second Out of Practice Seminar (Oops) @ Goldsmiths presents a performance talk by writer and visual artist Redell Olsen.
This performance talk pursues Olsen’s ongoing exploration of books as wearable objects and books as forms for art writing. Her previous focus on rewilding the medieval girdle book generated both an edition of wearable girdle books and a promenade performance with a triptych of headphone tracks (Fossil Oil: a book of hours, 2024). This talk considers the history of the ruff as a wearable fashion object in relation to its materials and associated social constructions, such as sumptuary laws which attempted to regulate the transgressive explosion of Elizabethan ruffs. These ruffs were made from materials that overlap with Elizabethan bookmaking and constructions of ruffs can be glimpsed in Elizabethan visual art and writing about this art. The ruffs themselves however constituted a sign system for fashionable performances in society, on stage and in paintings. Olsen’s exploration of the ruff as a form for 21st Century bookmaking writes through aspects this cultural history to make a hybrid new form of concertina books that exist independently as bookworks and as wearable art objects. She draws on the traditional techniques of bookbinding alongside a more D.I.Y. aesthetic of punk poetic subcultures. The intervention in practice Olsen proposes is not to conflate art with writing about art but to make a new wearable form of art writing.
Redell Olsen makes work across poetry, bookworks, visual and performance texts. Recent works include: Fossil Oil: a book of hours (2025), Frownlands, 1969 (2024), Weather, Whether Plume of the Volants (Book and Exhibition 2021). Her poetry collections include: ‘Film Poems’ (Les Figues, 2014), Punk Faun: a bar rock pastel (Subpress, 2012) and ‘Secure Portable Space’ (Reality Street, 2004). She is Professor of Poetry and Poetics at Royal Holloway, University of London, where she convenes the influential Poetic Practice CW MA.
Redell Olsen’s Fossil oil: a book of hours uses the format of a medieval book of hours to convey an important message about the fossil fuel era and the climate crisis we are facing as a result. The binding takes the shape of a medieval girdle book, a form of ‘wearable book’ popular between the 13th and 16th centuries. The materials echo Olsen’s message as she uses deadstock fabrics including a PVC leatherette, a product made from chemicals sourced from fossil fuels. This book is a great addition to our artists’ books collection as well as relating to our holdings of medieval manuscripts. Amy Orr.
Poetry and performance event Saturday, 15 March 2025, 10.00-4.45
10.15: Francis de Lima, Verity Rowsell, Izzy West et al 10.45: Robert Hampson & Joanna Levi; Jeff Hilson 2.00: Amy Evans Bauer and Cat Chong 3.30: Karenjit Sandhu and Redell Olsen
