All publications made, the final major project outcome can be found here:

https://www.moatzart.co.uk/bishopsgate-archive-stories-manuscript

Documents from the archive on separate padlet:

https://padlet.com/amotiu10202111/archive-research-p5-bcbn8yu4g0hk8l24

For stories from the Wages for Housework Campaign I used etching which is a more free handed technique, allowing me to incorporate the multiple elements and voices from the archive. 

For note taking for the Wapping Dispute I have been using letterpress and relief techniques, (wood carving and wood engraving techniques are relief techniques that are type high and combine well with type).

For The Murder of Altab Ali I will be using copper plates to engrave an original story. Copper engraving is one of the oldest techniques, which I think gives gravity to the work, like inscribing it into history.

Using the original archival material felt different. I think the first notes tricked the viewer slightly through a more deceivingly delicate style. The original material almost seems more unreal in how graphically racist it is.

For the Wapping Dispute I started the same note taking process by using letterpress, reprinting words from the worker's pleas at the time.

It really felt like I was embodying these issues, as the technique is so laborious, making me understand the scale of this issue, and of the consequences of how technological advancement in general is treated in relation to work.

I was over the moon in their approach of creating a fantastical story in the middle of this crisis as a way of giving agency to a character who wouldn't have had any agency at the time, but in a critical way, which doesn't affect the reality of the time.

The exhibition being work in progress has made me realise that I am still looking at working towards a publication, as this was the medium that felt most right as I did it. 

Do I describe each process, and make a kind of diary to go along with the stories? Do I link to the making of videos and stories in that way?

Do I not make a book at all, and find some other way of connecting this, akin to an exhibition where just the negatives are shown?

Do I introduce shots of me working towards the final illustrations? As a way of revealing the work behind making these stories known?

Printmaking as resistance - how do I show this - how do I show that this can be a resistant practice?

What was suggested to me as a possible outcome was a visual video lecture, whereby I talk about the material and present my acquired documentation. I didn't feel it would have been a great outcome as I want the work to be less academic, and more focused and lead by stories, while heavily considering their mode of production. 

So a personal exploration of the "work" I have been doing towards a specific purpose and cause might be a good way of engaging these thoughts throughout a publication?

(I really enjoy documenting these processes and feel that these communicate these ideas so well, just maybe not on their own?)

I think possibly one easy angle for me would be to consider this kind of making in relation to other artists, taking into account the texts I have been reading about how contemporary art has dealt with the same issues I am dealing with. 

I think what allowed me to put them together quite quickly was also the approach I had taken when I worked in letterpress - almost towards graphic design, and "painting with type", rather than adhering to strict rules.

It came about really from time pressure of me wanting to present the information quickly for the show, so in many ways it had the urgency of the original ethos of a zine.

The Wages for Housework Campaign has been advocating for paidhousework since the 1970s, a seemingly unachievable goal. Many victories can be attributed to them, like child benefits, and they havestrongly campaigned for many issues, such as the Marital Rape Lawintroduced in 1992.

The archive is dense and shows us the work it takes to organise and campaign towards a goal, especially when it comes to bringing together people who are not already part of a group/union. 

They have not yet achieved their goal, but there are many small victories which can be attributed to them, like many child allowance increases over the years.

Race Relations Act 1965    | Made it illegal to discriminate on grounds of race in employment and education.

The Race Relations act had already passed, which protected workers from discrimination at work. This did not extend yet outside of work, and wildly racist views at the time created an environment of great violence. Altab Ali, a garment worker in Brick Lane was murdered in 1978 in a racially motivated attack.

This is a case which shows us that the passing of one law is not the end of a struggle. The archive shows us what the political mechanisms which keep us from progress are. 

Employment Act 1990    | All forms of closed shop (a place of work where all employees must belong to one trade union) were made illegal.

The Wapping Dispute archive shows us the importance of Unions and that technological advancement shouldn't only benefit the employers. This case is considered by many as an important fight which had been lost by the unions, causing their incremental decrease in power since. (Horgan, 2021) 

This was instrumental in me grasping the complexities of the different issues I am dealing with, and the voices of the archive. I wanted to have this understanding of the overall context of each dispute before tackling the stories from workers.

For the Wages for Housework campaign I drew these notes, almost like a collage of information, copying images and what felt like important bits of information.

For The Murder of Altab Ali I sorted the most relevant material from the archive in a visual essay, which really helped me organise all of my research about the topic, as well as organise the material to tell a story.

What I appreciate about this project is two fold, how well the mode of production is represented and re-enacted, and the way the community was involved.

I would love to be able to design an equally strong way of re-enacting the processes I have been working with, on a larger scale.

Equally, throughout the project, I have met many people who took part in the Wapping Dispute. I would love to connect to more people like this, as these stories are more recent and still live, and find different ways of communicating them.

How do I show the different connections I am making through the different processes? If it was a book, how could I show the process?

Mireille's work is very close in purpose to my own: "My practice-based research is fundamentally concerned with how illustration, specially my practice as a visual storyteller, can be applied as a social research tool."(Croydonist, 2019)

My project is so similar to Mireille's approach, and the way she develops her work makes me wonder whether I would be able to work towards a PHD proposal with my work.

It has been suggested to me so many times throughout the course that my method of exploring archive through print can be developed further into a visual research method past this course.

I have such a strong commitment to these mediums and to preserving and imparting this knowledge. I am also now equally passionate about the ideas relating to labour that we can extract from them.

So Ciara Phillips Practice is really impressive to me, especially as it is somewhat similar in approach to ideas I have been thinking about for future outcomes, as exhibitions or workshops.

I want to find meaningful ways of sharing these methods with the general public (i.e not specialised or any specific groups), and a participatory exhibition would fit well. Though I would like to find ways of connecting this to my research, and ideas of labour, and perhaps not be as "open" in the approach.

So in some ways, it is like these anthologies which pick out writings from multiple places on a single topic.

I decided to let those be the main the focus, as choosing and centring these stories is the interesting illustrative act in itself.

What is ironic is how reaching an audience of workers in any conventional way is almost counter intuitive.

You would think that artwork about the history of work would be perfectly displayed in an office - though since the history of work is violent, it becomes the opposite of an ideal place (definitely will not "lower stress and anger").

Equally, whatever outcome my project takes, it will automatically be classed as "resistant" and "alternative", political. The worker that is passionate and excited about the working environment of today will not be my "target audience", no matter how much I would want them to be.

I have noticed how using a laborious technique, a trade/craft in order to make artwork on this topic successfully attracts an audience of workers, people really appreciate the "work" it takes for me to produce the illustrations. 

This resonates with my audience and the method has been useful in exploring my topic, but that is a strong realisation of the "guilt".

Of course this "guilt" about being an artist is unrealistic, as the arts are one of the most underpaid industries and highest in gig economy workers, with the least benefits and most hours (I sure have been working non stop since I started university, multiple jobs).

The text suggests that artists attempting to deal with social issues have a futile feat, being too entwined with the system, but that they will always attempt it anyway (Sigler, 2017).

I recognise that there are aspects where this is true, like as a part time working artist it is necessary to monetise the work I am doing, which feels wrong in relation to this topic (yet still practically necessary).

(there is also something in the above image which makes me think of the way capitalism manages to swallow its own critique, the fact that this painting is auctioned for £5600. this is the same with the kind of gig economy which was supposed to bring about freedom, but was coopted to mean more work, and more unregulated work instead.)

For Picasso it was considered almost a political act at the time (Harrod, 2018) to start making ceramics as opposed to other mediums accepted by the art world. For this, he had to use ceramics studios, and work alongside others in their production. So craft is inherently political.

Another inherently resistant quality of the medium, besides care and slowness, is akin to the auto destructive art of Gustav Metzger. In relief prints especially, the initial block is traditionally destroyed after printing the edition. Equally, I get so many people frustrated that I won't sell them the original block. I always have to explain that the block itself does not look as nice after you print with it. To many, this seems almost like "wasted work" (of course not wasted to me, as I know there is no other way I would have arrived at that same image).

"Manifesto for Maintenance art etc., Ukeles takes as her subject her socio-politically marginalised status as a woman artist and mother/housewife, seeing her artistic practice as analogous to domestic, reproductive activities that are connoted as female and thus excluded from the paradigm of work. In this case the activities of both "Housework and Art Work" are performative, affective and ephemeral - and are thus considered to be economically "unproductive". (Sigler, 2017).

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/mierle-laderman-ukeles 

"The appropriation of artistic, that is autonomous and free kinds of behaviour has been an imperative in the post - fordist world of work for a long time. It is a governamental technique for self-control, which, as Foucault described, promises a better life and thereby engenders a new generation of precarious "creatives" who, between short term contracts and low pay, achieve burn out instead of freedom." - (Sigler, 2017).

I know doing your masters seemed like such a big effort at the time, and that you often felt unsure of the future!

Even if you don't realise it now, it was the beginning of a wonderful artistic path and direction! 

You are now finishing your PHD, still developing your research methods in relation to work, resisting work, and archives. You have published several books, and have illustrated other people's writings too! You have had solo exhibitions showcasing work, and have developed workshops people can take part in. 

You will start thinking of more and more ways of educating other artists, in the beauty of craft and the opportunity for resistance it represents, (you will be offered teaching positions)! 

Please keep going, you often doubt yourself, but you did everything right! Thank you for all your hard work! 

Of course I realise that actually craft comes from the workers and it honours their spaces of production, and if anything it becomes coopted.

But Audre Lorde talks about being aware of the differences within a movement, and while coming together, not ignoring these, but rather let yourself guided by them to allow for conversations and experiences to be shared. (Lorde, 2018)

In constructing this story, i had to be so vigilant of this, especially in trying to relay experiences of a group which wasn't my own.

It seems to us that this history is somehow far away, but I still believe the government to be at fault for a death like Altab Ali's in 1978, for allowing openly racist policies to be campaigned for.

I wanted to include an aspect of craft in here, as most Bengalis in the story were garment workers, and they also have a big tradition of cloth making in Bangladesh.

It's interesting too that people in the west saw this photo as almost Christ like, of Ghandi spinning at the wheel. There is a disconnet here.

I was intimidated by the task, as I didn't want to be in any way disrespectful, or by mistake minimise some side of the story or an aspect unknown to me (especially as a white person).

He talks about how the quicker something has to be made, the more that a long process of one craft will be divided into small tasks, where a worker only has to repeat a minuscule section of it over and over.

That this over time produces a more "perfect" result.

However, he touches on a very important aspect, and that is that this division of labour will inevitably firstly turn a skill into multiple "unskilled" jobs (therefore lower paid), but also, this is how a skill can be lost. As there are no longer any people that know how to do something from start to finish, and no more apprentices (all of which would of course be more expensive).

And what would have been the results, if instead of firing all those workers when a better technological plant was built, and organisation would have been built instead where this craft was preserved, and publications of a different kind would have been made?

It is also making me so sad that these workers would have printed so many vial articles that would go directly against their rights and privileges. That in order to print alternative materials, you had to find collectively owned smaller plants. And that after all this process, once it dies out, the process is also stolen from you, as most would have only learned a section of it (let alone not had the resources for the equipment).

I really understood the practice of this while making letterpress prints. It took me two weeks to arrange 6 sentences together and print them, from start to finish, but of course the printworkers of Fleet Street would have been separated into different stations.

But in doing everything myself and considering every step, I had time to sit with the words I was printing, the fonts, and their arrangement. I had time to reconsider what I wanted to say.

https://archive.philosophersmag.com/fast-politics-slow-philosophy/

So the politics of slowness are interesting, as Michelle Boulous Walker talks in the article above, where she makes a connection between haste and totalitarian regimes.

(Equally I struggle to think who might be affected by this kind of "strike" if not just the artist - possibly art institutions, but I think it needs to be a better organised protest for it to have an impact on those).

Gustav Metzger was a big proponent of telling artists to take a three year strike.

While his self destructive work has a radical purpose, there was still a materiality to it which is part of what makes it so effective.

They also tend to undertake work in communities where they compensate for the lack of a strong welfare state (a lot of well-being and mental health work is passed onto arts organisations).

Furthermore, the idea of comparing work fields might be damaging to us, as it accompanies the thought that we are also now "much better off" compared to people in the past as well.

The project has prompted me to play with text for the first time and include it in my illustrations, but it is still not to the degree of this comic layout.

It is also giving me ideas for how to market this, as a kind of academic art book that is in between fiction and non fiction.

Similarly, at times, I think even archives can be an "unreliable narator" in themselves, as most of the documents will be from the governing powers of the time.

So dealing with this gently is important.

Her book is inspiring to me in how I could turn some of the stories I have been working on into a bigger graphic novel perhaps in the future too.

Communicating with artisanal means to workers is so successful as the labour is admired - there is such a trend for older workers to respond to criticisms around work by saying "well it used to be so much worse" "well I have to work three jobs" - they see anyone critiquing as "complaining" - and they sure don't have a right to complain in comparison. Communicating the same issues with such laborious crafts, which are "so much work" is so very successful in comparison. This, coupled with audience’s dismay at the potential of “wasted work” within printmaking processes, shows that working is meant to have dignity.

They publish visual essays on topics very similar to my own so I would be really excited to be able to send something.

In the illustrations on the Wapping Dispute, I have tried to choose stories which particularly show how the government worked together with the police and Murdoch to begin a process of lessening the power of unions.

I used a lot of animal/strange beings imagery throughout all case studies to represent forces and powers part of a corrupt system, also as I think this is a visual language we are used to in relation to this topic (Animal Farm).

There is so much visual repetition in all the works, as I wanted to give a sense of how repetitive the issue of work is. Workers have been fighting for their rights for a very long time, and the same issues pop up again and again (easy to see in the archive too).

What I also liked was how it commented on individual responsibility, turning it on its head. It showed that there is no one thing that an individual by themselves could do facing such systemic racism (unless an alien god grants you the power to save the world by killing three people before a deadline).

So I decided to invent a story where three witches tell Altab Ali that he is meant to start a revolution. He wonders about it, and starts trying to work towards it, but he gets killed, which starts a revolution in his community.

I wanted to ask questions about legacy and fate, whether had he known his destiny, would he have chosen this fate?

My belief is nobody would want to sacrifice their life, even if they knew good change could come about, let alone that some of these issues still persist today. I hope we are able to find ways to organise ourselves and come together, unprovoked by atrocities.

Inspired by these ideas, in my story, I used the garment as a storytelling device. In the first image the witches show Altab, he thinks it is him, as the person leading the revolution has a similar jacket. But if you look closely, the patterns on the jackets are different, and it was his brother in the vision.

Also hoping to show what a double edged sword this craft is for Bengalis, where on the one hand, it is a gift and beautiful tradition that gives them work, and on the other, it has been corrupted, and their wages are extremely low.

I sent the invite to them, and I also did a follow up where I included my manuscript and book pitch. Since everyone's work seemed to be quite different from mine (a lot aimed at children), I wanted to entice them further by sharing my work.

We did manage to get a couple publishers involved and I think one or two definitely came, which is a better outcome than we expected!

But more importantly, we need to find ways of coming together as workers.

So is it right to make his death a symbol, while not remembering all the other bengalis who worked towards gaining the comparative safety the community enjoys now?

Also, how would he have liked to have been remembered?

(It's worth mentioning these are just questions I am asking, not having an answer myself).

Tehching made a performance piece where he "clocked in" every day for a year as an artist.

In-text citation: (Harrod, 2018)

In-text citation: (Sigler, 2017)

In-text citation: (Livingston, 2021)

In-text citation: (John Lawrence Hammond and Barbara Bradby Hammond, 1967)

In-text citation: (Lorde, 2018)

In-text citation: (Horgan, 2021)

In-text citation: (Chang, 2011)

In-text citation: (Fisher, 2009)

In-text citation: (Hartman, 2008)

In-text citation: (Hall, 1999)

In-text citation: (Battershill, 2022)

In-text citation: (Tablet Magazine, 2013)

In-text citation: (Birmingham City University, n.d.)

In-text citation: (www.theshowroom.org, n.d.)

In-text citation: (Croydonist, 2019)

In-text citation: (Smith, 2016)

In-text citation: (Trancart, 2022)

In-text citation: (Shaffi, 2023)

In-text citation: (Obrist, 2017)

In-text citation: (Menand, 2017)

In-text citation: (Microcosm Publishing, n.d.)

But, work is not meant to be a struggle, or unpleasant. And I believe that if we were to have universal basic income, people would still work.

A recent conversation between Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk on AI in relation to work was very telling for me. Rishi laughs nervously when Elon mentions there may be no need for people to work in the future (as this obviously means instating universal basic income becomes a necessity). As a response, Rishi references the "culture of risk" at Silicon Valley, which people should get accustomed to, so another example of a really unregulated field of work, with frequent lay offs (also ignoring that it is able to be so "risky" as the tech industry has some of the biggest salaries.)

I would like to extend the writing in the future, and perhaps add even more detail to consider some of my ideas even more deeply.

To me it seems successful in questioning memory and destiny, and the mood is sombre, at times funny, showing the humanity in the story.