Emily Larned
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Substack mailing list: Till & Drift
Instagram: @emilylarned
Contact: [email protected]
Emily Larned has been publishing as an artistic practice since 1993, when as a teenager she made her first zine. Her imprint Alder & Frankia (est. 2016) publishes award-winning, widely collected collaborations from feminist archives, including in 2025–26 the publication and exhibition Workshopping at Women’s Studio Workshop. She is co-founder of Impractical Labor in Service of the Speculative Arts (ILSSA, est. 2008), which explores the immaterial working conditions of impractical laborers through participatory projects, publications, and exhibitions. ILSSA has installed exhibitions at a dozen institutions across the country, including the Center for Craft, Creativity & Design (NC), Colorado College (CO), Webster University (MO), and Ringling College of Art + Design (FL).
Emily lives and works in Storrs Mansfield, CT, where she is an Associate Professor of Art in Graphic Design and Affiliate Faculty in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS) at the University of Connecticut, and where she will serve as Director of Graduate Studies in Art commencing in fall 2026. She is currently making a book about the "non-traditional" New Haven Police Academy (1992–2008) with its former director K.D. Codish, a feminist theater director and lifelong social justice activist who worked tirelessly to transform policing in New Haven. Her print installation and first publication from Codish's archive is included in the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum's decennial of new art made in Connecticut, I am what is around me, on view now through January 10, 2027.
Emily's handmade artist books, zines, & publications are collected by over 90 institutions internationally, including the Tate, the Brooklyn Museum, the V&A, & the Smithsonian, & are exhibited around the world. Her publications have received accolades from the AIGA (50 Books | 50 Covers), the Type Directors Club (TDC) (The World's Best Typography), and the Connecticut Art Directors Club (CADC) (Gold & Silver awards in Book Design, Spirit of Creativity Award).
Emily learned letterpress printing as an apprentice to Robin Price while an undergraduate at Wesleyan University. She was co-founder of the Education Department at Booklyn Artists Alliance, and served on its Board of Directors from 2001–2009. She graduated from Yale School of Art with an MFA in Graphic Design in 2008. From 2009–2019 she was Chair of Graphic Design at the Shintaro Akatsu School of Design (SASD) at the University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she established SASD Design Service, a sliding-scale, community-oriented, student-run, award-winning design studio. She joined the faculty at UConn in 2019. She has taught widely, including at UAL's Central St. Martins (London, UK), Colorado College, Wesleyan University, SUNY Purchase College, Visual Studies Workshop, Anhui Polytechnic University (Anhui, Wuhu, China), Ludong University (Yantai, Ludong, China), and Art New England at Bennington College. She is looking forward to teaching Riso Ephemera: Printing the Day at Women's Studio Workshop in July 2026.
CVRECENT INTERVIEWS & PRESS
LISTEN
Honing In, Dr. Kate Henry, Episode 30: Publishing as an Artistic Practice with Emily Larned, June 2026
d'Archive, WHUS, Episode 54: Zines, Printmaking, and Impractical Labor with Emily Larned, October 2024
As We Create, Connecticut Art Directors Club, Episode 4: Emily Larned, August 2023
PRAXIS Yale Radio, Brainard Carey, March 2021
READ
The Aldrich Names Artists for First-Ever Decennial, Hyperallergic, January 2026
10 Shows to See in Upstate New York This December, Hyperallergic, December 2025
Workshopping at WSW, Artists' Book Reviews, November 2025
Looking for Subculture? It's at LA's Art Book Fair, Hyperallergic, May 2025
WATCH
Artists' Books Unshelved, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art: Bookending 45, November 2023
Small Things Brought Together, Robyn Love, Season 3, Episode 6: ILSSA (Bridget Elmer and Emily Larned), December 2021