OUTWORK shares the stories of women employed at Kenrick and Jefferson (K&J) Print Works on West Bromwich High Street. The book OUTWORK assembles together participants’ personal herstories and includes testimonials, photographs from their personal archives and workshop outcomes. Funded by Historic England’s Everyday Heritage Grants, the project seeks to share the often-overlooked histories of women’s work, at home as well as in the workplace.
Artist Sophie Huckfield, who is from Walsall and whose family historically worked in industries across the Black Country, spent a year interviewing women who worked at K&J, along with family members who have memories of their mothers, grandmothers, aunties and friends who worked there.
The resulting limited edition book assemble images from the project participants’ personal archives; quotes from their interviews; and creative outcomes from two workshops, charting the history of these working women’s lives, and seeking to explore how women can make space to debate what work is and could be. OUTWORK was designed in collaboration between Sophie and Joseph Lilley (Holodeck Birmingham) it has been printed in riso and bound by hand. Each copy contains a unique hand-made paste paper cover with a hand-foiled title (in a variety of snazzy coloured foils) on the dust cover, and an envelope containing hole-punch chads with a postcard insert.
Further information about the project can be found here.
Price is £10 plus P&P (UK second class).