- 1 - Print as other, the future is Queer Richard Harding RMIT University, Australia richard.harding@rmit.edu.au Abstract This paper will attempt to locate printmaking’s current position within contemporary art practices using the socio-political notion of otherness. The framework for this discussion will utilise identity politics of gender and sexual orientation as an analogy for Printmaking’s position within a historical and ongoing medium hierarchy. I will make connections between Printmaking’s reproductive foundations and its qualities of sameness & difference with gender and sexual orientation to better understand complicated and uncertain knowledge in both arenas of endeavour. By assigning Print the title of ‘other’ this discussion will be set within what I call a ‘painting normative’ culture. Through outlining a number of key protocols and attitudes, past and present, towards print practices I am attempting to identify a space where print practices can position themselves with equity and fluidity. As debates of gender and sexual orientation have entered an expanded phase of questioning through Queer, so to can printmaking’s ubiquitous position within the general art community. With this in mind the key question before us is, how can printmaking move past its historical and current cultural position into a more equitable state while it operates in and by the dominant cultural practices of the constructed notion of the original? Print as other “The Question is not whether we all have identities, but whether we are prepared to recognise them”. (Younge, 2010) My fascination with the notion of ‘print as other’ stems from the connections I see between printmaking and identity politics. Identifying who or what we are positions us within a particular demographic, arena or community. This is not a new practice. What is interesting in the context of Printmaking is how different artists do this and why they do it. So, who am I? I am a concept driven, process loving printmaker. I am also a Queer identified art practitioner. It is through these two modes of identification that I will discuss how artists do or do not identify with printmaking and the effect that this has on their work and practice. I will use art works of several practitioners as examples to highlight analogies between various notions of ‘otherness’ and Printmaking. Position, Proposition, Protocol Embedded in the many mediums of Printmaking is the process of reproduction, a quality that can be considered essentially female. It is through the reproductive matrix that printmaking begins its alignment with otherness through notions of the feminine 1 . It is also through this reproductive method of repeated image making that printmaking activates another aspect of otherness: sameness and difference. This aspect can be aligned with the identity politics of gay, lesbian and Queer 2 . To clarify this position it is important to revisit the general production manner and customs of printmaking. The basis of all print mediums is its facility to reproduce itself from an original matrix such as a plate or block. During the printing process the artist aims to produce an edition or set of 1 For further discussion on the feminisation of the print medium through the matrix see Authenticity in Printmaking – A Red Herring? P 5, Ruth Pelzer-Montada, 2001, IMPACT 2 conference proceedings. 2 In this context Queer is used to cover the identity politics of others that do not identify with the hetero-normative identity of ‘straight’. For a definitive definition on Queer in this context see Activism as Practice: Some Queer Considerations, Robert J. Hill P.85