Saturday & Sunday

May 31 & June 1
10 AM - 6 PM

Class Size Max: 12

This 2-day workshop invites participants to adopt a surrealist-inspired methodology of fluid image-text comparisons in a critical engagement with the NYPL Picture Collection, culminating in individual zines appropriating images from the collection. 

On Saturday, participants will meet at and explore the NYPL Picture Collection, using the process of aimless browsing to get lost in the collection. Through a process of show and tell - image selection, annotation, and discussion - participants are prompted to create a collective image bank guided by their personal associations and experiences. After scanning their communally sourced images, participants reconvene at Penumbra on Sunday to make explicit the unexpected meanings derived from accidental juxtapositions of images and text in the form of collages, drawings, montages, poems etc. Using Penumbra’s color and black and white laser printers, the class will then produce pamphlet bound or 8 page fold zines. Students will leave the workshop knowing how to approach archives and collections, generate and gather materials on their own for future projects, and make simple zines.

Tuition includes a $20 materials fee

Sandra Erbacher is a German interdisciplinary artist living and working in Providence, RI. Her collages, photographs, installations and artist books critically engage with the archive as an active site of the ongoing production and negotiation of history. 

She has earned her MFA from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2014) and her BFA from Camberwell College of Art, London (2009). She also holds a BA and MA in Sociology from Goldsmiths College, University of London. Erbacher has exhibited nationally and internationally, at Penumbra Foundation, Rueff Gallery, Purdue University, Cuchifritos, mh PROJECT, The International Studio and Curatorial Program, Stellar Projects, Spring/ Break, Grin Providence, the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI, Parisian Laundry, Montreal, and Space, Portland. Most recently, Erbacher has participated in the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture residency (2024). In previous years, she won a Center for Book Arts Residency, and a Manhattan Graphics Center Scholarship (2023), and participated in the 2019 Artist Alliance Lower East Side Studio Program, the 2017-18 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Workspace Residency, and the 2015 NARS Foundation Residency. She is the recipient of a 2019 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant, the 2014 Chazen Prize to an Outstanding MFA Student and the Blink Grant for Public Art 2013. Her work is part of the Fidelity Investments Corporate Art Collection, the James M. And Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, the Tedeschi Collection, Montreal, and numerous private Collections in the US and Europe.

Images © Sandra Erbacher

Thank you to the NYPL Picture Collection for making this workshop possible.