Foundation Press, led by Adam Phillips and Deborah Bower, develops community-publishing and collaborative design projects. They collaborate with a wide network of artists and communities. Founded in 2013 by Adam Phillips, Joe Woodhouse and Tom Madge as an experimental risograph printing studio, today, they create publications, educational projects, collaborative artworks and graphic design. Their projects often begin with a set of simple rules or published instructions, as a way of inviting others into the process of artistic production.
For Hinterlands, Foundation Press have produced a new collection of risograph prints titled Field Club (2022), that celebrates one of the oldest naturalist groups in the North East of England, The Cleveland Naturalists’ Field Club (formed 1881). The Club ‘seeks to promote an interest in all branches of natural history and to assist members in finding out about the living things they see in the countryside around them'1.
Working with images from the Field Club’s expansive archive, held at Teesside Archives, as well as collaborating with current members of the club, Foundation Press have arranged the diverse investigations of the group into playful patterns that reference display cases and museological presentations of nature.
In addition, Foundation Press have created a new typeface they have titled Hinterlands, especially for this exhibition. This letter set is inspired by a typeface used on the cover of the Cleveland Naturalist Field Club’s Record of Proceedings booklet from 1905. The new typeface features alternate characters that show the letterforms slowly overtaken by nature, like abandoned architecture in a forest.
1. 'Welcome to the Cleveland Naturalists’ Field Club', available to read: www.clevelandnats.org.uk |