As bosque brotante, the newest offering in the Present Cartographers series, is being launched, and as Reading the Migration Library is producing a new set of artist books, the virtual Light Factory Publications (LFP) workshop seems crowded with creative people and conversation. It’s hard to believe that all of this work is actually done in physical isolation from others, as a result of what now looks like a prolonged pandemic. Whereas LFP was once a moniker for the shared “factory work” that brought friends and collaborators around a table in a poorly ventilated studio, it seems that it will now simply “brand” virtual social activities that happen over the phone, video conference, by email, by mail and occasionally by physically-distanced meetings, where hand sanitizer and masks are at the ready.
Expecting la pandemia as the condition of our medium-range future, LFP is reviving some of the mail art methods that led to its origins in the late 90s. It has been inspiring to see a revival and hybridization of mail art methods in recent months. The on-line exhibition Pandemic as Portal (Audain Gallery, SFU) is rolling out artist-specific web-based work every few days, and this will include mail art display in response to a call from veteran mail artist, Anna Banana. The scans of mail art (e-mail art in this case) will be shown on the gallery’s web page and IG account on July 29. Vive la mail art!
The 2020 titles in the Reading the Migration Library project will be available by mail-exchange later this summer. An on-going, on-line exhibition of the results is being planned. Watch for details in August. An on-line RML event series is also being planned. During la pandemia all LFP titles are available for free viewing and download.