Hi! I’m JP King.
I’m an artist, designer, and educator in Toronto.
What do I do?
I think of myself as a kind of "gardener".
At any given moment, I'm cultivating numerous creative projects. I make books, videos, prints, courses, photos, texts, animations, music, and social sculptures… primarily about waste, creativity, systems, mental health, and the future of learning.
Much of my work uses graphic communication, experiments with alternative economic models, and orbits the publishing gesture.
Discard Culture
I am what I throw away.
For nearly a decade, I have probed the cultural phenomenon of waste, asking: how do we relate to the things we get rid of?
I have answered this through a sensory ethnographic documentary film, exhibitions, photo series, prints, publications, public lectures, workshops, and teaching graduate courses, all of which frame waste as key to understanding the conflict between modern life and the carrying capacity of the earth.
Research Support
My research has been supported by SSHRC, Ontario Arts Council, the Banff Centre, the University of Toronto, and OCAD University. In 2015, the Canada Council for the Arts nominated me for a Governor General's Innovation Award.
Creating a Municipal Artist Residency Program
Look at that.
In 2017, with Sean Martindale, I helped the City of Toronto's Solid Waste Department create and pilot an artist-in-residence program. This resulted in numerous public campaigns, presentations, and an address to City Council on the role of artists in the city.
Paper Pusher
I hustle print.
In 2010, I started Paper Pusher Printworks, an experimental Risograph publishing laboratory.
I explored numerous models of collaborative publishing and combined print with social practice.
During this time, I helped graphic artists around the world use, source, and repair near-obsolete Risograph printing equipment, which has since become coveted by design studios and artists everywhere.
Isometric Risograph Calendar
Such Nice Shapes.
Since 2011, I've designed an annual Isometric Risograph Calendar. Using simple shapes and some combination of fluroscent pink, yellow, and blue, I've made something that is widely beloved and lives in homes and offices around the world. It has been all over, most notably at the MoMA Design Store.
Papirmass
Art is for Everyone.
Between 2013-20, I was the Creative Director for Papirmass, an art print subscription that sent more than 200,000 artworks to subscribers all over the world. We sought to make contemporary art widely accessible, both in cost and geographical reach.
Design Services
Let’s work on something!
I offer a range of freelance services to value-aligned clients, including graphic design, illustration, branding, strategy, and research. I've worked with clients like Penguin Books, Fast Company, Oxford University Press, Artscape, The McConnell Foundation, and the Knowledge Media Design Institute.
My Education
I'm always learning.
I have a master's degree in interdisciplinary art, media, and design and a BA in creative writing. I have trained as a Gestalt psychotherapist and a Transition Design facilitator. In 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, I started and stopped a PhD in environmental education.
My Teaching
Learn with me.
More than anything, I love to teach, support and challenge others in their learning journeys. I design and deliver courses and workshops on discard culture, sustainable design, material culture, publishing platforms, contemporary printmaking, and visualizing research.
Since 2017, I've taught at the University of Toronto in the Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, and iSchool in the Faculty of Information. Since 2014, I've helped to shape the Integrated Design program at the Haliburton School of Art and Design. I'm a visiting faculty at Concordia University's Centre for Expanded Poetics.
Public Speaking
I like to talk.
I give public presentations about my research, projects, and subjects of interest. My entertaining and relational presentation style is rooted in collage, typography, and storytelling.
I gather, assemble, and sequence media to help my audience think differently about familiar subjects. My visual pedagogy is built upon techniques of visual communication, defamiliarization, juxtaposition, thought experiments, and diagrammatic explanation.
I love diagrams.
Mmm… Arrows.
I love making diagrams, flowcharts, and mind maps. From preliminary development to public presentation, spatial and visual thinking is central to much of what I do.
Making is thinking.
I believe that making is a form of thinking, and that creative inquiry occurs within a systematic framework. We use what we know and understand to investigate what we do not. An experiential process is the key to learning.
Modular Synthesis & Electronic Music
Noise to my ears.
Currently, I am obsessed with sound. For the past few years, I have been making ambient and environmental music with a modular synthesizer. I am endlessly fascinated by tone, timbre, vibration, harmony, and the systems thinking that comes with electronic synthesis.
Welcome aboard Spaceship Earth
I’m deeply concerned.
I am deeply concerned about the human contamination of nature, global society's overshoot of Earth's carrying capacity, the role of plastic in the more-than-human world, the desire-driven identity central to consumer society, and the multispecies entanglements affected by all of human activity. I am developing a number of projects in this area. Stay tuned.
What keeps me awake at night
I am dreaming about the future of learning.
The next generation of learners needs to develop creative skills to imagine and realize a livable, just, and sustainable future for all.
Kirsten McCrea
My partner in crime.
I'm married to Kirsten McCrea, an incredibly creative artist, mural painter, and entrepreneur. She founded Papirmass in 2009. She inspires and challenges me every day. Sometimes we collaborate on paper but we're always present in one another's work.
If you want to work on something together, please, get in touch!
email @ example . com
(555) 555-5555
123 Demo Street
New York, NY 12345