Produced through the 2013 Spudnik Press Residency Program.

Medium: Collage and Mixed Media on Paper
Paper Type: French Paper Cover
Year: 2021
Edition Size: 25
Dimensions: 19″ x 12.5″

Autonomous Democracy is a project that explores, archives, and celebrates the history of temporary experiments in direct democracy within liberation movements.

1. OBREROS UNIDOS JAMÁS SERÁN VENCIDOS
[WORKERS UNITED WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED]
Slogan shared by union activist Terry Davis.

2. a space where we stand for love, fight for freedom, & build community
Slogan shared by Sarah-Ji Rhee from Love and Struggle Photos.

3. ΓΕΝΙΚΉ ΑΠΕΡΓΊΑ!
ΆΜΕΣΗ ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΊΑ ΤΏΡΑ!
[GENERAL STRIKE | DIRECT DEMOCRACY NOW]
Slogan shared by Marina Sitrin

4. كن مع الثورة
[be with the revolution]
Slogan shared by Lara Baladi and calligraphy by Mohamed Gaber

5. ASSEMBLE | STRIKE| OCCUPY | MANIFEST REAL DEMOCRACY

6. AIN’T NO POWER LIKE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE, ‘CAUSE THE POWER OF THE PEOPLE DON’T STOP. SAY WHAT?
Slogan shared by activist David Solnit

7. RÊVE GÉNÉRAL ILLIMITÉ
[UNLIMITED OPEN DREAMS]
A play on “grève générale illimitée” (unlimited general strike).
Slogan shared by Stefan Christoff

8. QUEREMOS UN MUNDO DONDE QUEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS
[WE WANT A WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT]
Slogan shared by activist artist Andrea Narno

9. THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE
Slogan shared by activist artist Aaron Hughes

Aaron Hughes is an artist, curator, organizer, teacher, anti-war activist, and Iraq War veteran living in Chicago. He works collaboratively in diverse spaces and media to create meaning out of personal and collective trauma, deconstruct and transform systems of oppression, and seek liberation. Working through an interdisciplinary practice rooted in drawing and printmaking, he develops projects that deconstruct militarism and related institutions of dehumanization. These projects often utilize popular research strategies, experiment with forms of direct democracy, and operate in solidarity with the people most impacted by structural violence.

Nap Suite is a series of six drypoint intaglio prints made during Benjamin Merritt’s residency at Spudnik Press, created from a single intaglio plate. After each print, the artist scraped and burnished away each line of his handwritten poem, which is about the double nature of rest that results in both healing and invisibility for people with chronic illness. Coming out of earlier prints focused on the physicality of illness itself, Benjamin’s new work turns to language as a way of challenging the common story around illness and the conventional medical language that is rarely in his favor, as it insists on patient blame, quantified suffering, and metaphors of violence. His laborious and sculptural plate-making process gives the copper surface the physicality of a living body, expressing a nuanced and non-linear experience of changing thoughts and feelings. This multi-layered palimpsest of indelible marks reads as much like an echoing melodic chorus, or a dreamlike narrative, as it does like scars or ghosts.

Benjamin Merritt believes in the performative power of language to construct reality and experiences, especially those of the body and illness. His Nap Suiteprints are part of his larger artistic project to challenge conventional stories about chronic illness. He has a BFA from MIAD and was a Jerome Emerging Printmakers Fellow at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. He was a Spudnik Resident Artist in February 2020.

Nap Suite is a series of six drypoint intaglio prints made during Benjamin Merritt’s residency at Spudnik Press, created from a single intaglio plate. After each print, the artist scraped and burnished away each line of his handwritten poem, which is about the double nature of rest that results in both healing and invisibility for people with chronic illness. Coming out of earlier prints focused on the physicality of illness itself, Benjamin’s new work turns to language as a way of challenging the common story around illness and the conventional medical language that is rarely in his favor, as it insists on patient blame, quantified suffering, and metaphors of violence. His laborious and sculptural plate-making process gives the copper surface the physicality of a living body, expressing a nuanced and non-linear experience of changing thoughts and feelings. This multi-layered palimpsest of indelible marks reads as much like an echoing melodic chorus, or a dreamlike narrative, as it does like scars or ghosts.

Benjamin Merritt believes in the performative power of language to construct reality and experiences, especially those of the body and illness. His Nap Suiteprints are part of his larger artistic project to challenge conventional stories about chronic illness. He has a BFA from MIAD and was a Jerome Emerging Printmakers Fellow at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. He was a Spudnik Resident Artist in February 2020.

Nap Suite is a series of six drypoint intaglio prints made during Benjamin Merritt’s residency at Spudnik Press, created from a single intaglio plate. After each print, the artist scraped and burnished away each line of his handwritten poem, which is about the double nature of rest that results in both healing and invisibility for people with chronic illness. Coming out of earlier prints focused on the physicality of illness itself, Benjamin’s new work turns to language as a way of challenging the common story around illness and the conventional medical language that is rarely in his favor, as it insists on patient blame, quantified suffering, and metaphors of violence. His laborious and sculptural plate-making process gives the copper surface the physicality of a living body, expressing a nuanced and non-linear experience of changing thoughts and feelings. This multi-layered palimpsest of indelible marks reads as much like an echoing melodic chorus, or a dreamlike narrative, as it does like scars or ghosts.

Benjamin Merritt believes in the performative power of language to construct reality and experiences, especially those of the body and illness. His Nap Suiteprints are part of his larger artistic project to challenge conventional stories about chronic illness. He has a BFA from MIAD and was a Jerome Emerging Printmakers Fellow at the Highpoint Center for Printmaking in Minneapolis. He was a Spudnik Resident Artist in February 2020.

Print has corrugated edges.