The Steal This Poster Exchange

Steal This Poster was started by Martha Street Studio in 2012 and was the inspiration for the Steal This Poster Exchange which began in 2022.

The 2023 Steal This Poster Exchange and Exhibition is a collaborative project between Martha Street, Atelier Circulaire and Centre[3] and co-curated/co-organized by Julie Bruneau, Lesley Loksi Chan, Celia Destemberg, Conrad Marion and Jamie Wright and generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.

For this project, each studio selected four local artists to design a poster with the intention that it would be stolen. Subsequently each set of designs were exchanged with neighbouring studios and hand-printed by local screenprinters, Alison James at Martha Street Studio, Dominique Desbiens at Atelier Circulaire, and Michael Schnittker at Centre[3]. These prints were posted around public spaces of each city for “stealing”, playfully distributing free original artworks to various communities in Hamilton, Montreal and Winnipeg.

Featuring poster designs by Alex Jacobs-Blum, Alexey Lazarev, Callen Froese, Cato Cormier, Dana Edmonds, Jo Kolb, Kristin McPherson, Marco Muller, Nathan Eugene Carson, Ron Siu, Sonali Menezes and Stephanie Nuckle, this collaborative project explores contemporary printmaking techniques in relation to themes of politics, place and theft.

Atelier Circulaire, Centre[3] for Artistic and Social Practice, and Martha Street Studio are proud to co-present A Change of Scene: The Steal This Poster Exchange Exhibition, at Centre[3], in November, 2023. This group exhibition presents all twelve posters together and celebrates printmaking as a form of artistic collaboration and creative translation