Pick and Mix & Lucky Dip

This workshop was conceived behind a community libraries counter and across the internet through collective exchange around archival access and futurism. What is archival access now and what lies ahead for the analogue within collections? This was and is a question that played/plays across mymind as I care for an ageing slide collection that was fostered from a place of great access. Now in a dormant, mode, this workshop ‘Pick and Mix’ as part of CUT COPY REMIX will answer this through playful drawing and word association exercises.

The title of this workshop Lucky Dip was born from encountering a catalogue quirk when working for community libraries service In Birmingham, this phrase appeared on request for books after the 5 month lock down, and welcomed us to choose a ‘lucky dip’ of books for service users. The potentiality around this were endless and fostered a playful activation of the library and its contents. Applying this model to accessing collections, and that of ‘outdated media’ gave me a fresh understanding of the potential we can unlock collectively if we take a lucky dip. Lucky dip invites you to partake in the activation of a dormant slide collection through the form of collective drawing and word making.

This FREE workshop will be held on zoom, and will consist of an image association game using the slides in a vast 35mm slide collection that was once held by Birmingham School of Art (spanning historical to contemporary art and crafts, fromprimitive cave drawings to the works of School of Art Tutor David Cheeseman) – this workshop operates at an intersection between reproduction and redefinition of access to slide collections, which welcomes ‘drawers’ and ‘guessers’ to join together in reproducing slides in their own style(s). Nominees for drawers will be welcomed, then they will be secretly sent enlargements of 35mm slides, in the style of the popular online game Skribblio, Drawers will then begin to draw from the image within a time limit – guessers will put in their words associated with what they see in to the chat function on zoom.

This train of words will be printed and accessioned within the slide collection, the first new accession for years.

If you do not have drawing materials, contact Vivid Projects and we send out a drawing pack so you are able to partake in the workshop. A link for the workshop will be emailed one hour before it commences.