Dr Caren Florance has just completed a practice-led creative PhD through the University of Canberra’s Centre for Creative and Cultural Research, investigating material collaborations with poets. Her work connects diverse forms of print culture, through the use of letterpress and other textual technologies. She works at the University of Canberra, the ANU School of Art & Design, and is currently Critic-in-Residence at ANCA Gallery, Canberra. Her latest books are poetry collaborations with Angela Gardner (The future, un-imagine) and Melinda Smith (1962: Be Spoken To), both through Recent Work Press, 2017. Her website is http://carenflorance.com

Axonalogue

5 years of experiential materiality

For five years, colleagues from the University of Canberra’s Centre for Creative and Cultural Research have held an annual letterpress workshop, to which they bring their own writing to set and print. Initial expectations about ideal presentation shifted ground when faced with the intricacies and possibilities of the process. This is an account of their experiences that combines insights from participants with framing observations from my own experience with letterpress, typographic layout and its relationship with creative writing.