We’re excited to welcome Maria Fusco to the BCN programme, who will lead a writing workshop focussing on art writing and critical auto-theory / fiction for the seven artists selected to write for the inaugural issue of The Printing Room.
The Printing Room is an experimental and art writing journal launching in Sandwell and the wider Black Country, with new writing commissions each year that give emerging artists time to develop their writing practice with editorial support. The theme of this first issue is the Black Country as place; writers are exploring the Black Country’s stories and socio-political conditions, and their own experiences of forging an arts practice within an area that has historically been underfunded.
The artists are: Marley Starskey Butler, Polly Brant, Amelia Fox, Neoliberalizard, Rupinder Kaur Waraich, Rachel Magdeburg and Leah Hickey.
During the workshop we’ll respond to two short texts; I REMEMBER by Joe Brainard, and her own text; WHO DOES NOT ENVY WITH US IS AGAINST US: three essays on being working-class. Chapter two ‘Why I write the way I write (Sally)’ and ‘Afterword’.
About Maria
I am a Belfast-born working class writer based in Scotland and Professor of Interdisciplinary Writing at the University of Dundee, with a PhD awarded from the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at The University of Edinburgh. I’m a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
I write fiction, critical and theoretical texts and edit publications and my work is published internationally and translated into ten languages. I’ve been awarded an Engender Fellowship (Royal Opera House), a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship (Scottish Book Trust), am a Jerwood Creative Catalyst and an Hawthornden Fellow. I’ve been an invited Writer-in-Residence at Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris and Whitechapel Gallery, London.
My recent works are: History of the Present co-directed with artist-filmmaker Margaret Salmon (2023), Who does not envy with us are against us (2023) published by Broken Sleep Books ‘I love this book with my entire life and beyond. I’ve never seen anything like it. Read this book.” Isabel Waidner, Mollspeak (2021) at Museum of Home, ECZEMA! (2018-19) ‘An extraordinary text… a study of the body’s miscellany of culturally freighted products and vulgarities” Holly Pester & Give Up Art (2018) “After a book like this, most nonfiction seems curiously unaware of what writing can be” James Elkins & Legend of the Necessary Dreamer (2017) ‘A new classic of female philosophical fiction’ Chris Kraus & Master Rock (2015) ‘A primal confrontation with embodied forces.’ Dave Keenan.
About BCN
This workshop is hosted as part of the BCN artist development programme. BCN is a space for mutual support, learning and knowledge sharing for artists in Sandwell and the Black Country. Find out more.