not a ladder, but a field

George Harding

April – May 2026
Open School East

The Artist Publishing Module is a series of experimental workshops, devised by OSE Programme Producer George Harding, that explore different ways in which publishing practice can be utilised to communicate and/or distribute ideas and artworks through print.

Drawing from a number of projects that incorporate collaborative methodologies, George and the current cohort of Associates work together to develop a small publication in response to other Associates Programme curriculum activity, while experimenting with ways in which publication-making can be used to bring together individual ideas through collective means.

For the Associates Programme 2025–26, the module responded to an ongoing collective exploration of the key research strands of Home is where the garden is: civic, material and produce, alongside experiments in collaborative mapping and world-building. The intention was to create a publication that collected and collaged Associate work, research, and ideas into one rhizomatic, risographic space.

The module featured four, weekly sessions.

One

An introductory talk by George Harding, weaving in the critical design thinking of James Langdon; the scribes of the scriptorium, the Voynich Manuscript and the Gutenberg Bible; the typohypergraphicobject project and the ‘Typography Theory Practice’ seminar series; book works by the Situationist International, Paul Thek & the Artist Co-op, Stanley Brouwn and Mary Lucier; writers Lola Olufemi and Mary Ruefle; countercultural Russian ‘Samizdat’ publishing processes and DIY mailer networks; and publishers Paul Soulelis and Cutt Press.

The talk was followed by a series of experimental readings of texts selected by each Associate, which both introduced and fragmented the Associates’ current research enquiries, while beginning to map shared thematic links.

Two

Following on from the first session, the Associates continued to expand on their chosen texts through experiments in samizdat and scriptorium reproduction methodologies, playing with staggered readings, reading in the round, hand-offs and interjections. Chosen texts were embellished through processes of writing, collaborative editing and aural transcription, using semi-legible transcription software.

Prompts and reading ‘techniques’, inspired by Slow Reading Club (Bryana Fritz and Henry Andersen), were used to blur the lines between one another’s texts. Newly transcribed texts were then expanded further through the addition of found imagery, developing into spatial scenes: a series of mapped spaces composed of written, transcribed and illustrative material.

Three

In the final making session, the Associates used the scenes produced in the previous session as starting points for a group artwork that visually mapped the paths between their respective areas of research, repurposing material from previous sessions to form a larger, slippy space.

Through a process of sharing one another’s scenes, the Associates were asked to consider what they might experience, both individually and as a group, if they were to occupy the conglomerate spaces they had built.

Four

The final session of the module centred around an introduction to Risograph printing, including a brief history of the process, pre-press setup, preparation for print, and the printing process itself.

In the afternoon, the Associates prepared files for print using scanned and duplicated material from previous sessions, experimenting with layered prints, ink blending and misregistration using a Risograph.

Publication, not a ladder but a field

Not a ladder, but a field is a series of experimental publications developed and produced by the Associate cohort as part of the Artist Publishing Module of the Associates Programme 2025–26. The module was devised and led by OSE Programme Producer and artist George Harding.

Across four weekly sessions, the Associates undertook a series of collaborative writing and reading exercises that drew on a range of artistic processes and approaches to publishing. Together, the cohort shared, read and wrote about fragments of their own and each other’s artistic interests and research, building an interwoven archive of texts, images and ideas that is presented as the printed ‘foundation’ of Not a ladder, but a field.

Building on this foundation, each Associate held onto a single publication from the edition for the month preceding the installation of the Summer Exhibition 2026, and was invited to embellish its printed pages with their own additions, responding to the work and research they had chosen to contribute to the exhibition.

The resulting fourteen unique publications are an erratic reflection of the cohort, drawing connections between one another’s work and meshing conversation, tangential thought, writing and images into an open field, seeping at the edges.

George Harding is an artist, designer and curator. George is a founding director of Well Projects, a contemporary art gallery and publishers, and Programme Producer at Open School East, an independent art school.