Erik Ruin will be presenting “Songs of Enclosure and Exclosure,” a cut paper installation in the second-floor print room, as well as six takeaway risograph broadsides placed throughout the mansion.

The broadsides contextualize Glen Foerd’s history within an incisive critique of capitalism, through illustrated historical texts referencing everything from the Lenape perspective on the 1737 Walking Purchase to contemporary oil pipeline construction. Ruin’s work is inspired by extensive research into first-hand accounts of urban displacement and social exclusion, as well as work by Silvia Federici and Peter Linebaugh on the history of the commons. For the title of the piece, “Songs of Enclosure and Exclosure,” he nods to Glen Foerd’s collection of works by William Blake, and specifically his illuminated book of poetry, “Songs of Innocence and Experience.”

The print room hosts the culminating piece: a hand-cut paper installation which seems to emerge from ghost impressions of frames which previously adorned the walls. This intricate artwork combines the illustrations from the broadsides into a serpentine circuit referencing dams, border walls, pipelines, fences, and other symbols of enclosure and exclosure.

Click here to read more about Erik’s work written by past Artist in Residence, Tabitha Arnold.

Erik Ruin is a Michigan-raised, Philadelphia-based printmaker, shadow puppeteer, paper-cut artist, etc., who has been lauded by the New York Times for his "spell-binding cut-paper animations." His work oscillates between the poles of apocalyptic anxieties and utopian yearnings, with an emphasis on empathy, transcendence and obsessive detail. He frequently works collaboratively with musicians, theater performers, other artists and activist campaigns. He is a founding member of the international Justseeds Artists' Cooperative, and co-author of the book Paths Toward Utopia: Graphic Explorations of Everyday Anarchism (w/ Cindy Milstein, PM Press, 2012). Current projects include the Ominous Cloud Ensemble, an ever-evolving, collectively-improvising large ensemble for projections and music.