The Caversham Press was founded in 1985 by Malcolm and Rosmund Christian as the first comprehensive, independent printmaking studio in South Africa. The Christians established the press at the site of a decommissioned Wesleyan Methodist chapel in the countryside of the Natal province (what is now KwaZulu-Natal) (Fig. 1). Today, the former chapel, constructed around 1878 to serve a British settler community, houses the print studio; the surrounding grounds boast new buildings, including the Christian's home, cottages for resident artists, and an expansive garden that incorporates the chapel's original graveyard (Fig. 2). Founded during the height of late apartheid and without direct affiliation to educational institutions or community art centers, the Caversham Press is located within multiple South African histories. Caversham's physical location stands as a signifier of South Africa's colonial past, its artistic beginnings corresponding with apartheid rule, and its mission of collaboration with artists from all backgrounds and levels of experience reflects South Africa's complex multiracial and multicultural present. The Caversham Press can be viewed equally as microcosm and macrocosm; an independent creative enterprise operating in tandem with developments in recent South African history.

In 2010, the Caversham Press celebrated twenty-five years of printmaking. This milestone owes as much to Caversham's resourcefulness and perseverance as it does to the continued relevance and impact of printmaking in South Africa. Since its founding, the Caversham Press has worked with both emergent and established South African and international artists and afforded individuals--many with little printmaking experience-unprecedented access to professional and collaborative printmaking facilities. The extensive print archive that dates from 1985 to the present visually narrates Caversharn's evolution and its adaptive organizational structure--from the founding of the Caversham Press, to the establishment of the Caversham Press Educational Trust in 1993, to the formation of the Caversham Centre for Artists and Writers in 2000 and finally, today, to the implementation of the community-driven CreACTive Centers. Based on interviews and research conducted at the Caversham Press between 2008 and 2011 in preparation for a survey exhibition at Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, this essay considers Caversham's programmatic shifts, which evolved organically and strategically, and the artists with which it has worked in the context of South Africa's complex political and cultural history.

THE PRINTED TERRAIN: EARLY INITIATIVES IN SOUTH AFRICAN PRINTMAKING

Printmaking techniques were first introduced to South Africa by Europeans and the mediums advancement in the early part of the twentieth century took place principally within academic institutions and in the production of formally trained white artists who followed Western models. (1) Due to the dearth of accessible art education and to the lack of resources to support the purchase of materials and equipment, evidence of printmaking in the visual practices of black artists working in Western art traditions were virtually nonexistent prior to the second half of the twentieth century.

In 1948, the Afrikaner National Party came to power and formally instituted the system of apartheid ("separateness"), followed by the implementation of repressive legislation that systematically separated blacks from whites in all...