Conference Inkubators

Inkubators arose out of the desire for more informal, group discussions at the conference. They are set up as round table discussions, moderated by the organizer. Calls for Inkubator topics are requested during the Round 1 Call for Participation. Inkubators are scheduled for two hour increments, but typically last about an hour and a half. See Conference Inkubator descriptions below. 

 

SEA CHANGE: CONNECTING PRINTMAKERS, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND RESEARCH

Organizers: Deborah Cornell, Richard Cornell, Barbara Putnam

Date, Time & Location: April 4, 9:30-11am, Hilton Caribe, Los Rosales, Salon C

Puerto Rico is an island environment, a single point surrounded by a changing ocean and climate. To confront climate changes, sea level rise and possible mass extinctions, artists utilize the interaction of creative disciplines and the embrace of broad scientific research. Print media are flexible communication tools capable of absorbing data, analysis, and image, constructing a bridge between research and public engagement. Conservation and policy change can come from thoughtful, collaborative thinking, considering economic challenges alongside coastal biology, ocean rhythms, and marine ecosystems.

What are the environmental concerns specific to Puerto Rico and how do these issues resonate with the countries represented in the INKubator session? 

What interdisciplinary efforts are already taking place and what forms can they take? 

How do we connect printmakers interested in conservation, research initiatives, and working for change? 

Goals: 

  • Discuss Puerto Rican/Caribbean climate issues experienced now and projected in the future, reaching out to Puerto Rican institutions such as Milo Climate Action Academy or Caribbean Conservation Center for Manatees. 
  • Share ideas for collaborating to amplify scientific research, and reach the public through creative practice. 
  • Join international printmakers interested in communicating awareness of local and global climate change.

No Office Space

Organizers: Rae Helms and Francesca Lally

Date, Time & Location: April 4, 11:30-1pm, Hilton Caribe, Los Rosales, Salon C

“DIY serves as the honorific term for the kind of subject required by the constant just-in-time turmoil of our networked world. It has come to stand for a potent mix of entrepreneurial agency and networked sociality, proclaiming itself heir to both punk autonomy, the notion of living by your wits and as an outsider, and to a subcultural basis for authentic artistic production, the assumption that truly creative individuals exist in spontaneously formed social undergrounds.”       

– Lane Relyea, Welcome to Yourspace 

Inspired by Lane Relyea’s concept of do-it-yourself as an art form representing subcultural authenticity, No Office Space aims to discuss how easily accessible printmaking tools can enhance our understanding of both historical and contemporary archives. The focus of this inkubator explores the often overlooked aesthetics in print media through DIY and non-archival processes. Artists will examine how accessible methods in print media—such as xerox printing, risograph, stenciling, and monoprinting—can be used to reinterpret narratives about place, identity, gender, race, and power.  

Overall, this discussion will consider how underappreciated printmaking techniques can be used to reclaim narratives within the hierarchies of fine art. It will also discuss how the use of non-archival printmaking processes can reshape our understanding of history and aesthetics and what new possibilities these create for addressing issues of identity, power, and environmental sustainability.

The Changing Tides

Organizers: Sangmi Yoo & Rosenda Álvarez Faro

Date, Time & Location: April 4, 1:30-3pm, Hilton Caribe, Los Rosales, Salon C

This INKubator session will focus on understanding cultural diversity and celebrating it. The audience will participate in the learning of the history of the conference site, Puerto Rico, and its cultural heritage along with celebrating other cultures seen through the printmaking practices. The organizers will introduce their stories and welcome the viewer participation. Rosenda Álvarez Faro’s artistic practice, including her involvement in Taller Malaquita, an art collective founded by women artists of San Juan. Their interdisciplinary practices have provided a great platform for art production, solidarity, exchange, and collaboration. Sangmi Yoo will open a wider dialog by seeing one another’s cultures as evolving work. Her Stereotyped Ordinary project utilizes the overgeneralization of one’s culture by societies and brings attention to the cultural representation being a flux, not a stasis.

The key points to be addressed are:

  • Describe Puerto Rico’s colonial histories and other marginalized cultures and identify their historical and current challenges. 
  • Showcase current practices of the cultural representations in artistic practices and communities.
  • Discuss cultural diversity in sensible and inclusive ways through a participatory workshop.

Organizer Bios:

Sangmi Yoo
Born in South Korea, Sangmi Yoo’s recent work has been considering the often-problematic cultural representations of botanic gardens. Her print installations combine various digital, traditional, and post-digital printmaking techniques. Awards for her work include a Denbo Fellowship from Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, an AHL Foundation Visual Arts Prize, and a Puffin Foundation Artist Grant. She has exhibited in venues, such as Lucca Biennale Cartasia 2024 in Lucca, Italy, MOCA Jacksonville in Florida, the American University Museum in Washington DC, Seoul Olympic Museum of Art, the Museum of Printing History in Houston, the Moonshin Museum in South Korea, the Gyeongnam International Art Festival in South Korea and the Pacific Rim International Print Exhibition in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Rosenda Álvarez Faro
Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, Rosenda Álvarez Faro obtained a BFA with a major in Printmaking and a minor in Sculpture from the School of Fine Arts and Design of Puerto Rico in 2011 and is a co-founder and an artist of Taller Malaquita. Álvarez Faro works in printmaking, bookbinding, pamphlets, and murals. Her work was featured in El Espacio Común (2019) at the Museum of Art of Puerto Rico, and the 4th Poly/Graphic Triennial of San Juan, Latin America and the Caribbean (2015), both curated by Vanessa Hernández. She has been part of the De Aqui Pa’Ya project as a workshop leader and muralist in Comendador, Elías Piñas, Dominican Republic (in 2019, 2018, 2017, 2015, 2014 and 2010). She has also participated in group exhibitions such as Blanco y Negro in Santurce (2016), Malas Impresiones III in Río Piedras (2015) and Causality in Santurce (2014).

Image Credit:
Rosenda Álvarez Faro, ¡BANG!, Screenprint, 2023. | Sangmi Yoo, The Way Things Are, Screenprint, 2023.