Journal Launch: The Ground is Singing / The Printing Room II

Join Multistory for the launch of the second issue of The Printing Room, The Ground is Singing. The Printing Room is a yearly journal that publishes newly commissioned art writing from Sandwell and the Black Country. This year's cohort of artists are Exodus Crooks, Billy Haynes, Laura Onions, Lorna Rose and Abigail Villarroel, and we welcomed artist Cathy Wade as guest mentor and co-editor.

✹ Readings by the artists ✹ Pick up a copy of the journal ✹Drinks and food served at the bar ✹

About this issue

For this issue of The Printing Room the artists responded to the natural world through connection to place and locality. The theme of this issue is born out of Multistory’s Green Roots programme, which questions access to green space, and what climate resilience can look like in one of the UK’s post industrial heartlands.

The artists have each sought to dissolve the boundaries of the individual self in their writing, and throughout the journal, a chorus of voices, beings and experiences converge. They consider: survival and kinship in spaces that we have made inhospitable, the timespan of the built environment and what will unravel it, what it is to fall into and become part of the ground, to create a therapeutic garden and to find common experience with the land. Their works feature non-linear narratives that blur the lines between past and present. They immerse us, traversing the legacies of labour etched into the landscape, the stories of migration and displacement and trace the roots that link us to each other. They present a new map of constellations that invite us to roam through the Black Country landscape from a new perspective.

The journal is designed, printed and bound by The Holodeck, a printmaking and design studio founded in 2013 in Birmingham, specialising in Risograph, Letterpress, and traditional printmaking techniques.

About the event

Hear the artists read from their pieces, and meet other creatives in your local community.

Copies of the journal's issues 1 and 2 will be available to purchase (£5 each) on the night and there will be a bar serving refreshments. This event is free and is open to all.

Access: The event will take place in a ground floor space with wheelchair access.

Please let us know if you have any access requirements, by texting us, or calling us on: 07922 571832, or emailing us: aW5mbyB8IG11bHRpc3RvcnkgISBvcmcgISB1aw==

Artist biographies

Exodus Crooks (they/them) is a British-Jamaican multidisciplinary artist and educator, interested in self-determination and how it is steered by religion and spirituality. Their practice is auto ethnographical and exists in the orbit of their educational role where they work to reimagine Western pedagogy. Their art is research focused and follows the lead of the many radical Caribbean writers and thinkers advocating for indigenous ways of living. Exodus is currently experimenting with gardening, text, filmmaking, and installation to better understand indigenous thought and tend to the breaks that occur in the human experience.

Billy Haynes (he/him) is a writer, artist and musician from Wolverhampton. He blends sharp observation with myth and the uncanny to pose questions about how we might create or discover meaning in an uncertain age. Past works include ‘Common Land’ (2024), a multimedia piece including a soundscape, a shrine, and plantings of fruit trees, bushes and herbs in an underpass, and the discography of cult indie band The Calamity. He is currently working on ‘Folktales’, a series of short stories, and ‘The Book of the Witch Doctor’, a novel.

Laura Onions (she/her) has a printmaking practice that adopts sculptural, painterly and social forms to hold and share spaces for learning. The manoeuvres of printmaking (contact, transference, intimacy) underline these activities in which a focus on making together have emerged as her approach. Laura works with local archives to connect with place and offer a framework to respond and reimagine. She is thinking about ecologies and inherited landscapes through these means.

Lorna Rose (she/her) is an actor, poet and novelist. She has worked with Black Country Touring, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and toured with Apples and Snakes. Her debut poetry collection ‘Caterpillar Soup’ is out now with Verve Poetry Press. She has three autobiographical solo shows under her belt and has a play, a poetry collection and her debut novel coming out with Tenebrous Texts this year.

Abigail Villarroel (he/they) is a Venezuelan-born artist and writer whose work explores the complexities of queer immigrant identity. Raised in Venezuela and Qatar, Abigail’s art reflects his diasporic experience, blending themes of identity, nature, and displacement. His practice includes figurative and non-figurative work, often influenced by the male form, diaspora/memory/family, Venezuelan culture and his love for nature. Abigail uses a range of mediums such as acrylics, dry and liquid techniques, to create pieces that reflect a fusion of his queer gaze and cultural heritage. His art is in constant dialogue with his poetry and personal essay work.

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