#ActivatingNewham Workshop Diary

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By Kay Stephens

Over the past few months, Rabbits Road Press has hosted a series of talks and workshops as part of Activating Newham – a project engaging local young people in histories of community organising in Newham. Mine and Etta’s role in the project has been to run creative workshops responding to the talks programme, which has featured speakers from historical organisations such as Newham Asian Women’s Project and the Asian Youth Movement, as well as activists from contemporary groups such as Focus E15 and Grime 4 Corbyn. Our overall concept for the workshops was to explore how print and design can be used in political communication and to share DIY printmaking skills rooted in Rabbits Road Press as a community space that the group will hopefully continue to make use of in the future.

For our first workshop, ‘Repurposing the Archive’, we used photocopied publications from the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) archive - including flyers, pamphlets and photos from community defence campaigns in the 80s - to make posters relating them to issues of police violence today. Some of the group had visited the IRR archive previously, so this was an opportunity for a different form of engagement with the material there. 


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It was great to see the ways community activists used print and design for political communications and to learn to riso print together. This was the first time we had met with the group and it was also nice to be able to learn about their relationship with Newham and interest in the project. One of the women who came along was a local Labour councillor and recognised one of her colleagues in an old photo from a protest against police brutality! 

For our second workshop, ‘Memorialising Alternative Histories’, we designed (paper) plaques and wheatpasted them onto upright boards. We wanted to think about whose stories get remembered and publicly honored, and whose get erased or sidelined. In the previous two weeks, the talks programme had included speakers from the Asian Youth Movement who spoke about historical anti-racist campaigns in Newham. In order to publicly memorialise such histories that many even in the local area are not aware of, we thought to appropriate the design of blue plaques to make our own memorials, and share wheatpasting skills so people could paste them up in relevant local places. 


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We had some really great designs and and the group picked out a range of people and events for the plaque. A popular choice was the School Strike of 1983, in which many children from local schools struck in solidarity with the Newham 8, who were facing charges for defending themselves against police. 

The wheatpaste worked really well, and can confirm the plaques are still firmly on the boards. I’ll share the steps here if anyone wants to try this at home.

RECIPE FOR WHEATPASTING

  1. Measure one part water, four parts (plain, white) flour 

  2. Pour water into the saucepan, then sieve flour into saucepan

  3. Heat to just below a boil, whisking or stirring constantly 

  4. When the paste becomes thick and slightly translucent, it is ready to use!

Wheatpaste is literally just flour and water so it is cheap, easy-to-access and non-toxic! 

For our third workshop, ‘Recycled Banner-Making’, we used old riso masters to mono-print slogans onto old bedsheets. We wanted to think of thrifty ways to do bold and larger format communications so landed on this idea. In the workshop, we brainstormed ideas for slogans as a group, keeping in mind the various themes of the previous talks. We have a number of great ideas - one person suggested ‘It’s Not Your Shame, It’s Our Struggle’ in response to the talk on housing where the speaker mentioned people’s shame about needing help. Another suggested ‘Many Voices, One Chant’ to communicate solidarity across difference, inspired by the talk on feminism. We settled on ‘Removal, Regeneration, Replacement’ and ‘Gentrification Devours Communities: Eat Landlords’ (which had to be shortened to ‘Eat Landlords’). 

Making banners takes longer than you might think! We had a two hour session but it was a bit of a rush and we got really messy with the mono-printing. But the rush and technical difficulties made it really fun and collaborative. 


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Making banners takes longer than you might think! We had a two hour session but it was a bit of a rush and we got really messy with the mono-printing. But the rush and technical difficulties made it really collaborative and fun.

For our final workshop, we focused on smaller-scale communications, making stickers and badges. This was actually inspired by the massage ads that litter Manor Park’s streets, and the idea of covert communications where official channels are unable. We brought along some of the logos of the different groups that had come to speak during the programme for inspiration, but gave people free reign to design whatever they felt like. 


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We used sticker sheets and put them through the riso printer (top tip: put the sticker sheets through with another piece of paper below it so it doesn’t get stuck), and for the badges, we used the badge-maker at Rabbits Road, which we hope people will come back to use in the future!

The whole programme has been a great opportunity to meet people, share DIY creative skills and ideas, and get inspired. We hope everyone who came along will continue to use Rabbits Road Press for their creative and campaigning work! 

Upcoming

Our next and final workshop will be a DIY Riso and Wheatpaste Skillshare, 10.30-2.30pm on 23rd November at Rabbits Road Press. We hope to see you there!