Dr Jess Baines

Biography

Dr Jess Baines is a Senior Lecturer in Contextual and Theoretical Studies in the Design School at LCC. Her background includes working in radical print and design co-operatives, socially engaged practice, curation and producing small magazines. She began teaching at UAL in 2001. Her research interests broadly relate to radical and social movement cultural production and organisation.

Jess presents papers and publishes widely on her subject. Most recently, she has co-authored the book chapter with Tony Credland and Mark Pawson, ‘Doing it ourselves: Countercultural and alternative radical publishing in the decade before punk’, in Ripped, Torn and Cut: Pop, politics and punk fanzines from 1976 (Manchester University Press, 2018). Jess also co-authored (with Pru Stevenson, Suzy Mackie and Ann Robinson) the extensively reviewed monograph See Red Women’s Workshop: Feminist Posters 1974-1990 (Four Corners, 2016).

She holds an MA in Contemporary Art History and Theory from Goldsmiths and a doctorate from LSE. Her MA thesis was about the domestication and dismantling of modernist urban social housing. Issues of urban space continue to be of concern. Her PhD, Democratising print? The field and practices of radical printshops in Britain 1968-98, was an historical analysis of late 20th century independent left-wing and feminist printing workshops.

At LCC, Jess is co-convenor of the Design Activism Research Hub (DARH) with Tony Credland, Adriana Eysler and Siân Cook. DARH is based in the Design School’s Graphic Communications Programme and organises events relating to the cultural production of radical, social and campaigning movements.