Faculty oF humanities and social sciences 2013 - Victoria University ...

As a book arts studio, Wai-te-ata Press produces limited
edition, fine press and computer-generated publications by
contemporary New Zealand writers and artists, including
Vincent O’Sullivan, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Greg O’Brien and
Miria George, and by staff and students from the International
Institute of Modern Letters.
Although bearing a similar name and founded by Douglas
Lilburn shortly after the establishment of Wai-te-ata Press,
Waiteata Music Press is now a completely separate entity
based at the New Zealand School of Music.
The Press is directed by The Printer, Dr Sydney J. Shep, Senior
Lecturer in Print and Book Culture. Sydney specialises in a
variety of book history and print culture research projects,
including the history of paper and papermaking in 19th-century
New Zealand, edible typography and street graffiti, Wellington’s
book trade history, diasporic print cultures and transnational
book history. In 2009, she was awarded a three-year Marsden
Fund grant (her second) to study 19th-century typographical
journals. Sydney is also a practising letterpress printer,
exhibiting book artist and designer bookbinder who undertakes
creative research commissions at Wai-te-ata Press.
Sydney J. Shep
Senior Lecturer in Print and Book Culture
The Printer, Wai-te-ata Press
In the new knowledge economy, ‘book’ might be a four-letter
word, but it’s also an endlessly fascinating and seductive
material object to study. Hold a page up to the light and read its
distinctive signature, sniff the edges for the tell-tale aroma of
vinegar, riffle a volume to hear the music of its binding, run your
finger down the spine to expose the fake cords, taste the animal
glue brushed onto the paper. Books provide a fascinating window
onto the transmission of human knowledge and the complex web
of social, cultural, economic and political relationships which
produce, consume and preserve them. Contrary to popular
belief, the book’s longevity is a function of its extraordinary
flexibility as a portable knowledge basket over time and across
space. And, far from being dead, the book is alive and well,
breathing in libraries, in bookshops and on bookshelves, and
informing the technical vocabulary, architectural structures and
metaphors of the electronic environment.
Wai-te-ata Press is a space to explore books and print in all their
myriad forms. As letterpress printer and cultural historian, I relish
the unique opportunity to make books as well as study them. As
an advocate for collaborative, interdisciplinary and research-led
teaching and learning, I want to enthuse and inspire.
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences 2013 67