Off-Times: TAAS Newspaper ISP
with Amber Imrie
Off-Times is a slow, collective publishing space for artists who want to work with language—without needing to identify as writers.
Over the course of this five-month Independent Study Program, participants meet regularly to explore how text operates inside contemporary art practice, using writing, editing, and publication as artistic forms.
This is not a traditional writing workshop. Off-Times is designed for artists who are curious about language as material, process, and structure—and who want a shared reason to think publicly, carefully, and in relation to others.
About the project
Off-Times TAAS Newspaper ISP invites artists to explore the intersections between text, visual practice, and publication. Over the course of the ISP, participants engage with writing as material—developing text-based artworks, critical reflections, and collaborative editorial projects that culminate in the next issue of Off-Times.
This iteration transforms Off-Times into a living, artist-run laboratory for language-based art, shaped by the group’s collective vision. Participants experiment with writing as form, editing as dialogue, and publishing as exhibition-making. The final publication serves as both an artwork and a record of shared inquiry.
Is this for you?
Off-Times may be a good fit if you are an artist who:
is interested in writing but doesn’t consider themselves a “writer.”
wants a structured, collective practice rather than solitary production
is curious about publishing as an artistic gesture
values slow development, dialogue, and experimentation over polish
What participants do
Participants contribute short texts, visual–text experiments, and material responses to shared prompts, newspaper themes, and conversations among participants. The group collectively edits, sequences, and shapes the publication—treating editing as dialogue and publishing as a form of exhibition-making.
No prior publishing or writing experience is required. Writing is approached as material: something to cut, layer, reframe, and re-contextualize in relation to images, layouts, and the voices of others.
Distribution & public life
The paper is distributed globally through participating artists, who organize student-initiated pop-up events in their own regions. Each release becomes a decentralized exhibition—part publication, part performance, part social sculpture—extending TAAS’s reach across borders while nurturing new networks of artist-run collaboration.
Why a newspaper?
A newspaper is both ordinary and radical. It moves through hands. It circulates outside institutions. It holds many voices at once.
Off-Times treats the newspaper as a site where language, image, and collective labor converge—allowing artists to work publicly without the pressure of spectacle, branding, or individual authorship.
Enrollment deadline: February 3, 2026
February 6 - June 26
Amber Imrie (they/she) is an interdisciplinary artist, curator, and educator rooted in the Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas. Raised off-the-grid and largely homeschooled, Amber left formal education at sixteen and went on to earn a BA with honors from UC Berkeley, receiving the department’s Excellence in Sculpture award. They later earned their MFA from Stanford University, where they were awarded the Anita Squires Fowler Award in Photography and the Murphy Cadogan Award for hybrid practice.
Amber’s work explores queer rural belonging through photography, textiles, sculpture, video, and language. Their installations often center water, erosion, and devotional craft as metaphors for transformation and intimacy with land. Their work has been exhibited across the U.S. and Europe and is held in the permanent collections of the Bates Museum of Art and the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.
In 2025, Amber was an artist-in-residence at ACRE and returned as a curatorial fellow with Independent Curators International (ICI) through the Mississippi Basin Project. Recent solo exhibitions include the year my heart turned to water (2025) at Midnight Gallery in Bentonville, AR and the forthcoming A Cathedral of Salt & Silk at The Slit in Los Angeles (2026).
A founding member of The Alternative Art School, Amber has taught and mentored artists internationally since 2020. They have served as juror for numerous exhibitions and fellowships, and curated shows including Transfigure, Chosen Families, and others. They are currently co-authoring a commissioned text on Art in Rural America with Kate Bowen for ICI. In 2023, Amber received both the Creative Exchange Fund Spectra Grant and the Artist 360 Grant, and was invited to speak at EXPO Chicago and the ArtBo International Art Fair in Bogotá, Colombia.
Amber lives and works in Northwest Arkansas with their two dogs, continuing to build a poetic, material practice that honors queer resilience, community memory, and the entangled rhythms of land and life.
