Seasons Greetings

2009 is almost behind us and it's been a busy year developing exciting new projects with some old friends and welcoming aboard some great new collaborators. We'd like to say a massive thank you to all our clients, friends and collaborators for a great year, we hope you will have a lovely Christmas and we're looking forward to seeing you in the new year!

The studio will be closed for our winter break from Thursday 17th December and we are opening again on Monday the 4th January 2010. We'll be checking our phones and emails regularly however so please feel free to get in touch!

Thinking Objects features Spring Shrouds

Excellent product design book 'Thinking Objects', written by our friend, designer and university lecturer Tim Parsons, features a short section on 'Design as political activism' which mentions UHC's Spring Shrouds, designed and made for comedian Mark Thomas two years ago. The shrouds were put up around Manchester during rush hour one morning, covering every pavement advertising hoarding in the city centre (80 in total), giving commuters a 'temporary respite from the daily barrage of commercial messages'. The book can be bought from AVA Academia.

Thank You

Since hand delivering the Leeds Plan B Manifesto to key decision making organisations around Leeds city centre back in November we are extremely pleased to have received several thank you letters which we have quoted below;

Councillor Andrew Carter - Deputy Leader of Leeds City Council

“Thank you for your recent letter; I will certainly look at the website to find out more about the project. I am a keen gardener so will definitely use this on my garden and look forward to seeing the results.”

John Thorpe - The City Workshop

“Thank you for delivering the art work, especially as it forms part of the final ten works from your limited edition of 200.I am part of a small group of colleagues who cultivate an urban allotment. My contribution is to turn the full volume of soil - which rests on demolition land- and to introduce to it organically produced compost and horse manure to it. The contents of the artwork ill be used accordingly and the container placed carefully to bio-digrade. With Thanks, best wishes and appreciation of a beautiful work.”

ExtInked book

This 240 page book was produced in-house for ExtInked, it documents all the illustrations included in the project and provides factual information for each species. The book was printed in black ink (with additional colour photographs of the event inserted), using a skin-like cover and was beautifully hand bound by artist Lucy May Schofield.

We are currently looking into producing additional copies of the book which will go on sale shortly at affordable prices. For more pictures of the book, see the ExtInked project page on our website.

Picture of the day

The Budge sign is a 6ft tall art piece that was created by the UHC collective and exhibited at the Manchester Contemporary floor at the Buy Art Fair at Urbis earlier this autumn. It's still up for sale and if you're interested please contact timo@uhc.org.uk.

Hand Delivery

Since the successful public launch of the Leeds Plan B manifesto back in October, we have been hard at work ensuring the project has not gone unnoticed by the city’s decision makers. On a dull, rainy November day Jai and the team took to the streets of Leeds to personally hand deliver the Leeds Plan B Manifesto as a gift to key organisations around the city centre. We successfully delivered 10 biodegradable bags of compost each hand printed with the 13 point sustainability plan. We hope that these handmade works of art would encourage discussion and perhaps a new vision for the city of Leeds.

Omnicrom CT500

Currently in production for the extinked exhibition are the event fact files. 100 are to be produced, one for each species, using the appropriately obsolete transfer process of the Omnicrom system for the covers. Omnicrom is a simple transfer process based on the chemical interaction between Omnicolour colouring sheets and the thermoplastic resin used in photocopier toner. The pigment present in the Omnicolour sheet is transferred under conditions of heat and pressure directly to the surface of the photocopy, and once transferred, it can not be removed. The end result has a finish comparable with with litho printing and foil blocking.

Leeds Plan B manifesto launch

Leeds Plan B came to its conclusion on October 24th with the public launch of the sustainability manifesto. In spite of the autumnal weather our stall giving away the manifesto, hand printed on dozens of bags of compost attracted a great deal of interest.

By the end of the afternoon we were soaking wet but had given away a hundred bags of compost. The Leeds Plan B manifesto, written by Jai Redman (as artist in residence with the universtity's school of geography) with students, lecturers and local campaigners, calls for the 'composting' of the city's resources, returning the assets to local grass roots stewardship.

If you want to see one of the few remaining manifesto bags, visit Manchester's Cube Gallery, where the work is on display in the current Open Submission show until 18th of December.

Signs of Revolt exhibition

Some of UHC's artwork are being exhibited at the Signs of Revolt, Creative Resistance and Social Movements since Seattle exhibition in London next week, alongside artists such as Jonathan Barnbrook, Jody Boehnert and Noel Douglas. The exhibition highlights activist artwork produced since the demonstration in Seattle 10 years ago where direct action activists, environmentalists and trade unionists shut down the meeting of the World Trade Organisation. The exhibition is also looking towards the Copenhagen climate summit, weaving together stories from a movement working against capitalism, war and climate change.

If you're in London next week this should be well worth a visit. It takes place at Shop 14, The Old Truman Brewery, Brick Lane from Friday 13th November to Sunday 22nd November.

A third of all species threatened with extinction!

It's all about ExtInked at the moment. Shocking news this morning, "More than a third of species assessed in a major international biodiversity study are threatened with extinction, scientists have warned." That's according to the IUCN. Read the full article on BBC News here. Also, according to the RSPB the bird Hen Harrier (which is on our list of possible tattoos) has had a really bad year. Both the IUCN and the RSPB referred to climate change and loss of habitat due to human encroachment as major contributing factors.