In the Gallery
WORKSHOPPING : New Work by Emily Larned
Curated by Faythe Levine
On view until January 23, 2026
Teaching, at its best, is a form of making: deeply creative, rooted in one’s experience, knowledge, way of being.
The ethos of Women’s Studio Workshop is rooted in knowledge exchange and skill sharing. For half a century, WSW staff and instructors have been hosting a spectrum of workshops, including printmaking, papermaking, photography, bookbinding, pottery, live drawing classes, and creative writing. Some of these expanded into out-of-the-box and far-out creative concepts for class offerings.
Emily Larned, whose practice revolves around new collaborations, anthologies, and reissues from feminist archives, sifted a surprising amount of these conceptual offerings from WSW’s expansive ephemera collection, like newsletters and Summer Arts Institute class catalogs. The culmination of this research is manifested in three parts: an interactive questionnaire, a publication released through Larned’s imprint Alder & Frankia, and a series of experimental collages inspired by the workshop descriptions. Together, the exhibition invites reflection on the recursive processes of teaching, learning, and making.
Larned’s publication, Workshopping at Women’s Studio Workshop: Efemmera Reissue: No.8, is available for purchase on site and online while copies last.
About the Artist
Emily Larned has been publishing as a socially engaged artistic practice since 1993, when as a teenager she made her first zine. She is co-founder of Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA, est. 2008), a union for reflective creative practice, which explores the immaterial working conditions of impractical laborers through participatory projects, publications, and exhibitions. Through her imprint Alder & Frankia (est. 2016), she publishes new collaborations, anthologies and reissues from feminist archives. Emily’s artist books, zines, & publications are collected by over 80 institutions internationally, including the Tate, the Brooklyn Museum, the V&A, and the Smithsonian, and are exhibited around the world. Her work has received design accolades from the AIGA, the CADC, and the Type Directors Club. She graduated from Yale School of Art with an MFA in Graphic Design and is Associate Professor of Art in Graphic Design at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
Instagram: @emilylarned