Essaying the Pamphlet

Art, Politics and the Pamphleteer brings together a collection of text-based and visual essays, commissioned artworks and graphics. This richly illustrated book responds to the concept, aesthetics and function of the political pamphlet. Chapter abstract: The Pam Flett Press is an independent serial pamphlet publication essaying aspects of the everyday. These visual, verbal, audio works also reflect metacritically on the forms through which diverse ideas might be explored, the potential for thinking otherwise about familiar things, and the ways in which complexity and contradiction can be valued. The Press is a collaboration between Joanne Lee (words and images developed from ongoing artistic research) and Sheffield design collective Dust (design and print). Since it first appeared in 2011, four issues of the Press have been distributed (Call yourself a bloody professional; Lord Biro and the writing on the wall; Gumming up the works; Vague terrain) with content being finalized for the release of a further two (I see faces; Witches Knickers); four more are currently at the research stage. This chapter brings the Press’s various interests and iterations into dialogue with the histories and more recent practices of the pamphlet and essay forms it employs. It is deliberately associative, as fragments prompt discussion of format, content and methodology, and concludes with a reflection on alternatives to the privatized, professionalized academic mainstream.