In this workshop, artist Misha Ilin, collaborating with Some People Press, will investigate the economy of instruction to shed light on the entrepreneurial aspect of socially-engaged art. Employing the principles of W.A.G.E. and time-trading, Misha Ilin and artist Harrell Fletcher (founder and team member of Some People Press) have designed task-based instructions to explore models of support for socially-engaged art in dialogue with participating audience members, using Some People Press as a case study for support. Building upon Misha’s prior use of contractual frameworks to explore concepts of hospitality, debt, and indebtness, the emphasis of this workshop moves beyond mere tangible transactions (money/labor/time) to map intangible qualities of exchange driven by our mutual social dependencies.

Workshop participants will develop strategies for achieving mutual benefits from such practices, concluding with a discussion about the ethics and efficacy of these strategies.

Some People Press is a participatory art project focusing on autobiographical writing and publishing based in the Columbia River Correctional Institution in Portland, Oregon. Offering weekly writing workshops inside the prison, the project provides material, professional, and emotional support to writers. Completed autobiographies are assured editing, design, and global on-demand publication. Structured as a small business, the project aims for a self-sustaining economic model.

This program accompanies the launch of Misha Ilin’s meta-meta: book of instructions (WPA, 2023). The documentation of this discussion as well as other evidence of it created during this program will become a part of the meta-meta exhibition on view October 14 – November 18, 2023 at WPA’s Project Space.

About the Participant

Harrell Fletcher (he/him) is a Portland, Oregon based artist and educator who likes to go on walks and collect wild mushrooms. He’s been creating participatory art projects for over twenty-five years, including collaborations with Miranda July and Jens Hoffmann. His work was included in the 2004 Whitney Biennial and is held in the permanent collections of MoMA, NY; SFMOMA, San Francisco; and SAIC, Chicago.