Landscapes of
Change Exhibition
Where: Manchester Poetry Library
When:5 June – 31 August 2024
Key Collaborators: Sarah Cleave (art direction), Helen Mort (author), Curatorial team at MPL.
Brief: To create and design several illustrated broadsides for exhibition featuring poems by Helen Mort, as well illustrating and designing a zine containing a collection of her poems for dissemination at the event. The poems reflected on Helen’s time in Greenland on an artists residency, and the overall theme of the exhibition was centred around the effects of a changing climate on Greenlands landscapes.
Photograph and book binding by Sarah Cleave.
Creative Constraints:
This project was designed and delivered over the course of a month on a tight budget, meaning that decisions and direction had to be established quickly, and that workflow had to be efficient. We navigated this as a team by immediately establishing key graphic elements - deciding to focus on flora and fauna featured in the poems, as well as focusing on retaining a traditional ‘field journal’ aesthetic in the zine.
Early on in the project we collectively decided that risograph printing would be the best fit for the project, allowing us to create physical media in-keeping with the ecological consciousness of the exhibition. We also utilised a recycled paper stock for both the broadsides and the zines.
Field Notes in various forms. The one on the left unfolds to become a poster to take home, and the right is the full collection of poems by Helen Mort.
Sarah Cleave (L) and Ysabel Hinrichs (R) standing in front of one of the broadsides. Sarah is holding one of the Zines produced for the event and Ysabel is holding the Landscapes of change exhibition guide.
Inner page of one of the zines, this one unfolds to be an A3 Poster (which is the same as the one in the photo above).