With printed works by the very likeable likes of Harmen De Hoop, Ekta, Damien Correll and Michael Crowe, Museums Press is doing good and new things with the temperamental wonder that is independent publishing. Based in Manchester, their appreciation of an artists personal style and motives is reflected in an honest aesthetic and prolific output, or rather, good work and lots of it! Worth a couple of questions on our end…

Can you tell us a bit about how you got started with Museums Press, who or what inspired the publishing endeavour?

Museums Press started in 2009. It began as an ambitious publishing endeavor with MUSEUMS ONE which grew from what was meant to be a simple photocopied group zine, to become a box-set with a book, a tape, posters, a comic and screen-printed packaging, which was handmade in it’s entirety. MUSEUMS TWO had a similar ethic, but was far more simple to put together, 25 individual photocopied fanzines, one of us still thinks of it as their proudest moment. MUSEUMS THREE took another year to come to fruition and in amongst it’s chaos MUSEUMS SMALL PRESS was founded to maintain a steadier, more simple stream of releases. Really, the inspiration comes with each project. Its about putting out releases with as much enthusiasm and care as possible.

Is there an emphasis to what you print in terms of form, content and artists you like to work with?

With there being two sides to Museums Press the emphasis varies. Obviously there is always strong thought going into aesthetic, quality and consistency, we guess we have a faith in our own tastes! In regards to artists we like to work with, it’s just a case of coming across something that we love and figuring out a format that works for both parties. At the end of the day the emphasis is on the artists work. We started the Small Press to keep a fixed format/design where Museums Press itself is kind of a breeding ground for sprawling, indulgent ideas, although future releases are a little more reigned in, which might be because there are so many!

Who are you working with at the moment and is there an ideal future plan you’d love to realise at Museums Press?

Amongst all the small press releases from Ryan de la Hoz, Ekta, Matthew Feyld, Denise Kupferschmidt, Mason McFee, Mark Warren Jacques, James Benjamin Franklin, Keith Greiman, to name just a few! We are currently working closely with Kelly Lynn Jones and Keith Shore on two books that are very significant to both artists. Keith and Kelly have both become good friends and are artists we admire so much. Then there is the MUSEUMS ANTHOLOGY which sees us working with Museums contributors past, present and future, old and new friends and a couple of exhibitions to accompany it. As for projects we’d like to work on, moving to Glasgow in July is on the horizon.

Share Article

About the Author

Bryony Quinn

Bryony was It’s Nice That’s first ever intern and worked her way up to assistant online editor before moving on to pursue other interests in the summer of 2012.

It's Nice That Newsletters

Fancy a bit of It's Nice That in your inbox? Sign up to our newsletters and we'll keep you in the loop with everything good going on in the creative world.