Upcoming Event
CHOMP: The Paste-ups of Earwig Magazine: Opening Celebration
Graphic from the cover of Earwig 8½, edited and designed by John Milne and Heather McInnes, printed by HEATHERPRINT, 1973. Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury.
20.02
5:30pm
Come celebrate the opening of 'CHOMP: The Paste-ups of Earwig Magazine', curated by Claudia Long
On behalf of the CoCA Board, we are delighted to invite you to our first exhibition of the year. CHOMP: The Paste-ups of Earwig Magazine, features original paste-up artwork from Earwig (1969-1973), an underground magazine created by John Milne. Curated by Claudia Long.
Earwig is an underground magazine that was created by John Milne and published independently from 1969–1973.
This exhibition features the magazine’s original paste-up artwork from the Heather Knowles Collection housed at Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury.
Prior to the introduction of the desktop computer, paste-ups were created by graphic designers to place typography and imagery into multi-layer compositions that would be combined in print to form a final page design. The evidence of the human hands behind the design of Earwig communicates care and effort that is uncommon in many design practices today. To physically plan and construct a paste-up design exercises a level of thought, craft and complexity that is at odds with the resources, space, and time available in our contemporary world. In revisiting this past practice through the lens of a designer in the current age of computer automation and AI, this exhibition aims to highlight the slow manual craft of analogue design and how it could be used to subvert the digital mainstream of mass generation, producing work with real meaning and agency.
With thanks to the Heather Knowles Collection, Macmillan Brown Library, University of Canterbury.
Join us at 5.30pm on Friday 20 February for a mihi whakatau to welcome Ōtautahi graphic designer Claudia Long.
CHOMP: The Paste-ups of Earwig Magazine will be on in our Ō Papa gallery from 21 February to 29 March 2026.
