This collaboration came about through the resurfacing of the Slade’s historic links with Asia (most specifically research into artists coming from Asia to study at the Slade in the 20th century and the ongoing and significant influences and entanglements in both directions that ensued) as part of the Paul Mellon Centre’s London, Asia project.

Key connections emerged between the two institutions, particularly through the late Slade Professor of Printmaking, Bartholomeu dos Santos (known as Barto), and Naazish Ataullah, who founded the Print department at NCA (inviting Barto to help set up a new etching studio there), and went on to become its principal. Subsequent generations of NCA teachers followed in Ataullah’s footsteps, creating a substantial and sustained relationship between the two institutions.

London, Asia, Art, Worlds

The Print Pals project is being framed within the London, Asia project by a group of students led by Professor Ming Tiampo at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. These students, who are taking a graduate seminar connected with the London, Asia, Art, Worlds symposium Tiampo is co-organizing with Hammad Nasar and Sarah Turner at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, will be providing historical and critical perspectives on Print Pals. Students on the course have been invited to participate in the Print Pals exchange and will be writing short essays reflecting upon the project, its process and its outcomes which we plan to publish alongside the artworks themselves.

Process

The collaboration has taken the form of a series of online meetings and discussions between students and staff at all three institutions. We identified common themes and interests, and drew up pairings informed by these framings as starting points. The Print Pal pairs and later essayists then met up independently to share stories, work, and get to know each other with the intention of creating an opportunity to form deeper connections, meaningful experiences, exchanges and responses.

While the publication provides a focal point and an outcome for the exchange, the project aims are broader: to create the opportunity for global exchange and shared experiences at a time when borders and horizons have shut down in the real world but have opened up online. The exchanges have been both cultural and personal, with participants working from home throughout most of the project with lockdowns imposed in both countries for the majority of the time.

Publication and Dissemination

Print Pals: Then and Now will be printed in both Lahore and London in limited editions with a PDF available to download (12MB). The book is accompanied by a pamphlet containing essays written by students from Carlton University, Ottawa, in response to the project.

There was an online event on 15 December 2021, 2–4pm to officially launch the publication in December 2021 as part of the Slade 150 series of events/celebrations.

Print Pals: Then and Now will be on display from 15 December 2021 until 22 June 2022 as part of the Slade 150 Testing Ground exhibition at UCL Art Museum, South Cloisters, UCL, Gower Street, London WC1 6BT (Wed-Fri 1-5pm, entrance free).

For more information and to see the project unfold in real time please follow PrintPal.s on Instagram.

The project emerged as an outcome of the Paul Mellon Centre’s London, Asia research project and has been supported by UCL Global Engagement, South Asia.

Credits

Print Pals has been co-organised by staff including Susan Collins, Dryden Goodwin, James Keith and Lesley Sharpe at the Slade; and by Muhammed Atif Khan, Abdul Musawir, Laila Rahman and Fatima Saeed at the NCA, with the support of Ming Tiampo, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.