Conference Themed Portfolios
Themed Portfolios are theme-inspired print exhibitions organized and curated by and for SGCI members, and are based around the idea of a print trade. Participants produce an edition of prints with the same number of participants, plus one for the SGCI archive and one for the conference host (if there is an institutional host). All of the editions are collected and collated into portfolios; each participant receives a portfolio with a full set of prints; one copy of the portfolio is donated to the conference’s host institution/s, and one copy is donated to the SGC International Archive at the Zuckerman Museum of Art at Kennesaw State University.
Portfolios are a significant part of the conference and will be displayed in designated conference rooms at the hotel, or in areas of the host institution. Organizers are responsible for sending one portfolio to the archive and bringing one portfolio (or shipping ahead of time) to the conference. They are also responsible for the distribution of the remaining prints among participants. See Themed Portfolio descriptions below.
The AI Print Workshop
Organizer: Dana Potter
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Marika Arellano Christofides, Mary Claire Becker, Shannon Bourne, Leonie Bradley, Paul Catanese, Kathryn Combs, Brian Gonzales, Cullen Houser, Travis Janssen, Sean P Morrissey, Mariceliz Pagan, Dana Potter, Sarah Sipling, Drew Sisk, Mariana Smith, Riel Sturchio, David Wischer
The AI Print Workshop is an exchange portfolio inviting printmakers to collaborate with AI. Participants must incorporate AI-generated material (text, imagery, or video) to address theoretical or material questions. The works can address any of these three prompts:
Materiality: Examine how AI image generators stylize images to be woodcuts, intaglios, lithographs, etc. What do AI image generators get right or wrong? How does it alter our approach to the aesthetics of traditional print processes? Artists are asked to question the value of and visually compare analog and digital mark-making in the creation of work.
Creativity: Investigate AI’s role in ideation. Artists who use narrative, visualization, text, or otherwise in their work are invited to incorporate AI as a step which disrupts or enhances their current artistic process.
Social Significance: Address the societal impact of AI, particularly concerning authorship, representation, and misinformation. Artists are asked to critique how AI tools are created (who controls the information and where it comes from) and the implications of AI tools on social progress, information architecture, and equity.
Once all participants are selected, a roundtable discussion with the artists will be held online to compile communal knowledge on AI, allowing participants to share projects, techniques, and insights. The roundtable outcomes will be published with the portfolio and shared with the SGCI community.
Tactical Communications – Comunicación Táctica
Organizers: Rae Helms & Francesca Lally
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Savannah Bustillo, Amy Cousins, Sophia Dell’Arciprete, Emma Eichenberg/Eli Nole, Katie Garth, Lois Harada, Rae Helms, Brandon Hernandez, Carolina Hicks, Kate Horvat, Anie May Johnson, Paul de Jong, Jake Lahah, Francesca Lally, K. MacNeil, Roberto Torres Mata, Sarah McDermott, Dillon Rapp, Nickolas Satinover, Jalisa Sousa-Silva, Hester Stinnett, Josh K. Winkler, Ari Zuaro
Tactical Communications explores printed language as a tool for connection and advocacy. This portfolio will highlight multilingualism, poetry, and printed ephemera — posters, flyers, pamphlets, and other textual art — emphasizing printmaking’s historical and contemporary significance in counterculture movements as a means of public engagement. This exchange will showcase the enduring power of printed text in our digital age, emphasizing print as a form of public communication.
This exchange encourages artists to create works that convey critical messages, advocate for change, and foster connections. Participants are encouraged to experiment with typography, layout, and/or imagery combined with printed text to engage in translingual forms of communication and how print language shapes public narratives.
Salt & Blood of Hidden Kinships
Organizers: Corinne Teed & Ron Abram
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Ron Abram, Fiona Avocado, Dustin Brinkman, Vin Caponigro, Ruben Casillo, Matao Dreskin, Will Henry, Christina Kang, Peri Law, Natalie Manes, Hannah McNichol, Guen Montgomery, Heather Parrish, Natasha Pestich, Frank Rowland, Ian Ruppenthal, Devin Stackonis, Edward Steffani, Corinne Teed, Lancelot Yates
This portfolio invites printmakers to engage in a queer research praxis into family histories of migration. Queer communities have long had a practice of delving into archives to find hidden treasures, as community histories were often coded to hide queer erotics and existences due to dangerously homophobic societies. Using this approach to the archive: what can we rescue of stories of our families’ past that were overwritten by surviving empire, colonialism, and capitalism during migration? What can we imagine into their lives that the archive may not have captured? What wisdom do we want to recover from ancestral communities that may have been lost in watery passages or repressed to endure White-Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy (as defined by bell hooks)? The prints in this portfolio celebrate the healing work we do to embrace ancestral traditions, stories and all the outsiders whose lives were marginalized in their time – from cultural workers to queers to bootleggers to sexworkers to witches to revolutionaries. Printmakers do not need to be LGBTQ identified or be making work about queer ancestors, but be open to using a queer research praxis to approach what might be lost or hidden in our family histories.
Those interested in participating in this Themed Portfolio should submit the following by September 15: 3 images of prints created in the last five years along with a brief description of how you will contribute to the portfolio theme of “Salt & Blood of Hidden Kinships” Additionally, would love to hear the family history you are considering as you approach this portfolio.
Print A Bird on It
Organizer: Daniella Napolitano
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Stephanie Berrie, Caitlynn Buckler,. MC Carey, Noah Dasho, Jessica Gross, Sallie Harker, Brooke Ann Inman, Phil Jasen, Rylie Kelley, Deborah Maris Lader, Lujiang Li, Heather Muise, Daniella Napolitano, Zoe Nielsen, Sarah Pickett, Andrew Polk, Mitchell Poon, Emily Ritter, Elizabeth Claire Rose, Stephanie Smith, Adriana Torres Cruz, Jonathan Wright
Puerto Rico is part of the largest biodiversity area in the Caribbean islands and provides important over-wintering habitat for many migratory birds. Puerto Rico has over 300 bird species, including 19 that are endemic to the island. In celebration of the birds of Puerto Rico, the Themed Portfolio – “Print a Bird on It” delves into the intricate and vibrant world of avian life through the lens of printmaking. The portfolio celebrates the diverse plumage, dynamic flight patterns, and symbolic significance of birds across various cultures. We admire birds for their remarkable variety and beauty, from the iridescent plumage of a tiny hummingbird to the graceful flight of a soaring eagle. Birds captivate us with their intricate behaviors, melodious songs, and the sense of freedom they embody. Their ability to traverse vast distances and adapt to varied environments also inspires awe, highlighting the resilience and wonder of nature. Birds often symbolize deeper themes such as hope, freedom, and transformation. This portfolio underscores the profound connection between art and nature, inviting viewers to reflect on the elegance and fragility of bird species. Just as birds migrate to the island for water weather, printmakers flock to Puerto Rico for camaraderie at SGCI.
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LANDMARKING
Organizers: Alex R.M. Thompson & Vinicius Libardoni
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Victoria Day (Canada), Jason Everitt (Canada), Jonathan S. Green (Canada), Anthony Huang (Taiwanese-American), Luke Johnson (USA), Łukasz Koniuszy (Poland), Heather Leier (Canada), Vinicius Libardoni (Poland), Myken McDowell (Canada), Walter Rindone (Italy), Augusto Sampaio (Brazil), Kelsey Stephenson (Canada), Alex R.M. Thompson (Canada), Anna Trojanowska (Poland), Anna Gaby-Trotz (Canada), Erik Waterkotte (USA)
The portfolio LANDMARKING builds on the overarching premise of Puertograbando, fluidly shifting between noun and verb in a linguistic play that enables a range of interpretations.
LANDMARKING could be understood as the process of surveying, identifying, defining and delimiting a given physical space. Such actions are often associated with the need to draw boundaries in order to preserve sites of historical, natural, cultural or architectural interest. The theme could also be read as an exercise in generating methods of wayfinding from place to place. Alternatively, LANDMARKING might refer to the process by which occupants inscribe a landscape with traces that irrevocably change it in some way. Similarly, etching, carving or burning a graphic matrix is also a way of intervening on a given ground or material, leaving traces, grooves and openings which, in their turn, will imprint the images that will bring this portfolio to life.
De los árboles, para los árboles
Organizer: Kimiko Miyoshi & Tava Tedesco
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Erica Adams, Lindsay Buchman, Jennifer Chen, Celeste De Luna, Kiyomi Nannery Fukui, Carissa Heinrichs, Fleming Jeffries, Poli Marichal, Kimiko Miyoshi, Michael Nannery, Jesse Parrott, Marianne Sadowski, Mariana Smith, Mike Sonnichsen, Tava Tedesco, Summer Ventis, Melanie Yazzie
The thematic print portfolio project, De los árboles, para los árboles, celebrates, and considers, the significance of trees and forests from various angles. The Central and South American nations such as Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Mexico, are among the top ten nations that have the most tree-species-diversity which corresponds to the degree of diversities in other plants and animals. Trees with roots appeared way before humans in the Devonian period nearly 400 million years ago. Trees not only dominate landscapes visually, but they also have decisive effects on humans, animals and the earth, physically, mentally and ecologically. The importance of the Amazon forest and other forests for reducing the effects of the manmade climate crisis is a scientific fact. Trees are also important in absorbing other pollutants, holding soil to prevent landslides, maintaining the temperature and humidity and providing shelters. Universally, trees and forests are often protagonists in folklore and mythologies throughout history as well. The very existence of trees and wood in our surroundings is beneficial to our health. New hospitals and schools often include prominent use of wood and plants in their facilities as hygroscopic (moisture control) ability of natural wood has been observed to reduce stresses and hypertension and foster learning activities. However, ironically, any industrial use of wood, even for hospitals and schools, can contribute to deforestation and we need to be aware of the environmental effects of its consumption. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations found that we were losing forests at a speed of 10 million hectares every year (FAO 2020 report). Printmakers who use wood also need to be consciously working with this material with respect. This portfolio project invites printmakers who celebrate trees and forests in expressing a variety of chosen narratives by utilizing wood and its visual mark makings.
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Collaging Identity
Organizer: Dave DiMarchi and Brett Taylor
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Stephanie Alaniz, Dustin Brinkman, Myles Calvert, Alejandra Carillo, Dave DiMarchi, Javier Flores, Eliza Frensley, Adrian Gonzalez, Brittany Gorelick, Forrest Lawson, Alexey Lazarev, Heather Leier, Daniel Luedtke, Eliza Lutz, Nathan Pietrykowski, Andrew Rice, Beth Sheehan, Gloria Shows, Sarah Sipling, Sok Song, Kaleena Stasiak, Heather Steckler, Brett Taylor, Kurt Tomerlin, Lisa Turner, Erin Wohletz
Collaging identity will explore the artists’ use of collage techniques through printmaking as a means of portraying, imagining, and authoring one’s identity. Artists are asked to consider a variety of collage applications including but not limited to chine colle, layering multiple print techniques, physically reproducible collage elements, etc. allowing for a variety of interpretations specific to their creative practice and individual identity. Artists should strive to create an edition of prints inspired by, employing and/or in some way relating to collage while engaging in traditional printmaking processes as the foundation of their edition.
Aunque naciera en la luna
Organizer: Elisa Dore & Azin Yousefiani
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
Participants: Jamaal Barber, Nikki Jabbora-Barber, Gino Castellanos, Elisa Dore, Tenjin Ikeda, Jacoub Reyes, Stephanie Silva, Sergio Suarez, Jasmin Warnock, Azin Yousefiani
Making up 5.9 million people, Puerto Ricans outside of Puerto Rico vastly outnumber those on the island. Climate disasters and the disaster capitalism that follows, economic decisions imposed by the colonial government that favor the US, archaic colonial laws continue to displace and decrease the island’s population by the year. As members of diasporic communities, we are prompted to ask: how do we relate to homeland from afar? How do we inform our identities if we have been removed from their geographic source? And how does a place, or memories of a place, continue to exist outside of its borders? This portfolio entitled “Aunque naciera en la luna” (“even if I were born on the moon”) invites members of Puerto Rican and other diasporic communities to reflect on these questions of the diasporic experience.
Lessons from Our Mother Tongues
Organizer: Danqi Cai
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Golnar Adili, Dennis Ahearn, Ivy Brenneman, Danqi Cai, Jaquelee Chit Yu Chau, Javier Flores, Chenxi Gao, Jade Hoyer and Emily Luna, Raluca Iancu, Nilou Kazemzadeh, Anna Kenar, Dilara Miller, Mable Ni, Yangbin Park, Tatiana Potts, Anie Toole, Liz Zhang, Francille Zhuang
According to linguistic relativism, the language we use to discuss the world influences our perceptions. Bilinguals and multilinguals, then, afford multiple ways of thinking. In tandem with our bilingual Puertograbando conference, Lessons from Our Mother Tongues invites bilingual and multilingual artists to 1) explore how language shapes thoughts and 2) share their frames of reference with the world.
Portfolio contributors are encouraged to draw inspiration from words, phrases, or sayings in a non-English language that they are fluent in. Guiding questions include: how do you feel about this word, phrase, or saying? What is the history behind it? What may an English speaker unfamiliar with this language find amusing or perplexing? Do you agree or disagree with its underlying value judgment? Why, or why not?
Image: Rafael Tufiño Figueroa (Puerto Rican, 1922-2008),
25 Aniversario (25th Anniversary), screen print on paper, 19 x 26.5 inches, 1974.
Courtesy of Thomas F. Anderson and Marisel C. Moreno Collection.
ReDivEdCo
Organizer: Barry O’Keefe
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
Participants: Burt Bucher, Kathleen Charnley, Enrique Figueredo, Kate Fowler, Melissa Haviland, Brooke Inman, Caroline May, Ryan Numair, Barry O’Keefe, Joseph Velasquez, Anna Wagner
Puerto Rico’s División de Educación de la Comunidad or DivEdCo was founded in 1949 by Puerto Rico’s first freely elected Governor, Luis Munoz Marin to help develop a sense of shared identity, common values, and purpose in a fractured and impoverished Puerto Rico. Modeled on the WPA program of Roosevelt’s administration, DivEdCo reached out to a broad popular audience through film, writers workshops and especially printmaking. DivEdCo, which was active through the late 1980s acted as an incubator for many of the most important Puerto Rican printmakers of the century including Lorenzo Homar and Rafael Tufino.
At a time when identity in mainland America is deeply fractured, shared ethical languages disintegrating, and common visions blurred, Puerto Rico’s DivEdCo can teach us how to rebuild. This portfolio asks printmakers to resurrect the communitarian content and proletarian form of DivEdCo, and apply it to social issues facing their own local communities. Printmakers are invited to partner with nonprofits in their home cities/towns to create an edition of hand-printed posters addressing an urgent issue of relevance to their community. Artists will produce an edition large enough to accommodate the SGCI exchange, and provide their local nonprofit with 30 posters to be disseminated throughout their local communities.
Sumergir y Resurgir/Submerge and Reemerge
Organizer: Ruthann Godollei
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
Participants: Fraixa Albizu, Miguel A. Aragón, Diógenes Ballester, Marwin Begaye, Aaron Coleman, Marcos De Jesús Carrión, Justin Diggle, Ruthann Godollei, Jonathan Herrera Soto, John Hitchcock, Stephanie Hunder, Luke Johnson, Eddy A. López, Ricardo Levins Morales, William Mathie, Myken McDowell, Humberto Saenz, Nicole Simpkins, Maria Cristina Tavera, Xavier Tavera Castro, Joseph Velasquez
A deep sea voyage with history, with identity, with political or personal events, open to interpretation by the artists. Submerge can signify immersing a person in liquid that totally covers them. Leaving a person, country or government in a generally negative, underwater, condition. Or completely concentrating one’s attention. Reemerging implies returning to life or being seen, after falling or going under. This portfolio consists of international artists who work with new directions in printmaking, in media such as lithography, letterpress, wood cut, screenprint, digital media and engraving.
Printilla
Organizer: Kelly Nelson
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
PRINTILLA PORTS AND PARTICIPANTS:
Port of Aguadilla, Susanna Crum
Port of Arecibo, Kerri Cushman
Port of Arroyo, Jessica Spring
Port of Aguirre, Juniper Teffeteller
Roosevelt Roads Naval Station (Ceiba), Ani Volkan
Ensenada Honda Harbor (Ensenada Honda), Kelly Nelson
Port of Fajardo, Kimiko Miyoshi
Port of Guanica, Laurie Carnohan
Port of Guayanilla, Lujiang Li
Port of Isabela Segunda, Chelsea O’Hayer
Jobos Bay (Jobos), Patrick Vincent
Port of Las Mareas, Sydney Samele
Port of Mayaguez, Jessica McDonnell
Playa de Humacao (Playa de Humacao), Riley Winkles
Port of Ponce, Raluca Iancu
Punta Guyanes (Punta Guyanes), Sariah Park
Puerto de Naguabo (Playa de Naguabo), Anna Kenar
Puerto Maunabo (Puerto Maunabo), Summer Ventis
Port of San Juan, Tatiana Potts
Puerto Nuevo (San Juan), Heather Huston
Port of Tallaboa, Nicole Soley
Port of Yabucoa, Emily Stokes
Port of Aguadilla, Susanna Crum
Port of Arecibo, Kerri Cushman
Impress ideas. Print propaganda. Stamp solidarity. In this portfolio each participant will adopt one of 22 Puerto Rican ports to create a printed flotilla, armed with cultural ammunition. Expression is couched in Boriken’s rich history of cultural exchange and its role in the concepts of the American melting pot and global connectivity.
Celestial|Terrestrial
Organizers: Andrew Kozlowski, Sheila Goloborotko, Jill Parisi-Phillips, Dimitry Tetin
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Nicole Andreoni, Denise Bookwalter, Cynthia Brinich-Langlois, Kate Collyer, Sheila Goloborotko, Beth Grabowski, Louise Fischer, Travis Janssen, Leslie Koptcho, Andrew Kozlowski, Melissa Wagner Lawler, Sharon Lindenfeld, Daniel Luedtke, Sean Morrisey, Jill Parisi, Richard Repasky, Tanja Softić, K. Stevenson, Evan Summer, Shelley Thorstensen
Since the Age of Exploration, discoverers and artists have been mesmerized by the Celestial |Terrestrial. Collectively, we stared at the oceans and became watchers of the skies; we developed systems to chart, measure, and calculate the position of where we are, someplace we have been—and most importantly—aim to arrive.
Disaster Relief
Organizer: Jaime Knight
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Anthea Black, Margaret Denk-Leigh, Emma Difani, Kirsten Flaherty, Kate Goyette, Richard Hricko, Jaime Knight, Heather Muise, Michelle Murillo, Malgorzata Oakes, Edie Overturf, Luz Marina Ruiz, Dan Rule, Nick Shick, Rachel Singel, Sarah Sipling, Devon Stackonis, Taro Takizawa, Lisa Turner, Alexander Wolf, Meagan Wright, Gabriela Yoque
In Disaster Relief artists come together in the form of a themed exchange portfolio to address issues of climate change and the myriad problems associated with it. From rising oceans, temperatures, and storm frequency, to food inequities, refugee crisis, and perpetual war driven by a reliance on fossil fuel; artists look at these complex issues with an eye towards solution and political solidarity. Using the site of Puerto Rico and its peoples resiliency in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria as inspiration and a beacon of hope, artists have created prints to build a network across distance to engage in a critical discussion around this theme.
Mestizaje
Organizer: Becci Spruill
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
Participants: Justine Aremu, Angelina Bissey, Marco Camacho, Anissa Cavazos, Chelsea Clarke, Javier Flores, Olivia Fredericks, Christina Kang, Aracely Millan Mendoza, Lujan Perez, Linda Lucia Santana, Becci Spruill
Mestizaje is about the unique experience of being at the intersection of cultures. This is an outgrowth of Gloria E. Anzaldua’s writings on mestiza consciousness and culture. Often the mestiza can feel that they belong without fully belonging, embracing who they are while trying to balance who they are expected to be. Code-switching, defiance of false binaries, identity politics and internalized racism are all included in the experience of the mestiza, who lives between boundaries. Work in this portfolio explores the lived experiences, perspectives and stories of those who navigate these intersections.
Carpeta Gráfica: Cuentos, Mitos y Leyendas de América Latina y el Caribe
Organizers: Manuel Guerra & Reinaldo Gil Zambrano
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Samantha Bares, Jessie Burciaga, Lyell Castonguay, Kill Choi, Francisco Delgado, Doug Ebergardt, Matthew Egan, Oscar Gillespie, Paul Acevedo Gomez, Omar Gonzalez, Manuel Guerra, John Hancock, Marco Hernandez, Kristina Key, Emmy Lingscheit, Roberto Torres Mata, Scott Minzy, Raul Monarrez, Carlos Llobet Montealegre, Benjamin Muñoz, Marcos Sanchez, Zack Schmitt, Michael Whitehead, Reinaldo Gil Zambrano
This portfolio exchange will collect and visually register a series of popular stories from The Americas that have been passed orally from generation to generation. Printmakers were challenged to study, recreate and interpret a “Cuento”, “Mito” or “Leyenda” (Told tale, Myth or Legend) from a particular part of The Americas evaluating the influence of current times on the interpretation of such tales. The prints will be exchanged between the participants developing a rich portfolio that pays tribute to the cultural tradition of storytelling and unify the Americas and the Caribbean on the interpretation of their many told stories.
Washed Over – Lithographic Stone as a Vessel of Resilience and Metaphor
Organizer: Mark Bovey
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Mark Bovey, Christine Adams, Diyan Achjadi, Zach Bath, James Boychuk-Hunter, Sydney Cross, Dusty Herbig, William Kurucz, Alex Linfield, Berel Lutsky, Morgan Melenka, Marc Seigner, Bryan Ritchie, Nicholas Satinover, Otis Tamasauskas, Louise Wallendorf, Catherine Wild, Eric Wilson
Puerto Rico’s long history of natural and colonial devastation has shaped the geography, and an impressive culture of resilience. Thinking about the island as a vessel and the natural and manmade forces that descended on it, I invited proposals for works considering the flexibility and resilience of lithographic means. Works address the processes as metaphor(s), linking ideas of Puerto Rico as a place between worlds, between continents, between the powers that have and continue to wash over and shape the island, its people and our perception from afar.
International Standards/Printshop Signage
Organizers: Linda Lyke & Camilla Taylor
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: Kat Burdine, David DiMarchi, Leslie Friedman, Kiyomi Fukui, Brian Gonzalez, Nancy Haselbacher, Vasil Kolev, Linda Lyke, Nancy Macko, Phyllis McGibbon, Pilar Nadal, Maxwell Forrest Roath, Jen Scheuer, Marisha Simons, Hannah Skoonberg, Camilla Taylor, Heather Thomson, Tonja Torgerson, Patrick Wagner
Every instructor and print shop manager has their own unique policies and procedures for how things must be done in their shop, procedures that range wildly but often have regional commonality. Individual instructors have found solutions that they have shared with each other, with many signs in place in printmaking studios now to encourage safe use of tools, community practices, and an open mindful approach to artmaking.
MAPPING THE ANTHROPOCENE
Organizers: Catherine Bebout & Karen Oremus
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Lynne Allen, Catherine Bebout, Deborah Cornell, Elizabeth D’Agostino, Sarah Epping, Bernice Ficek-Swenson, Ashley Fuchs, Fleming Jeffries, Anita Jung, Karen Oremus, Michelle Rozic, Eszter Sziksz, Josh Winkler, Sarita Zaleha
The devastation of Hurricane Maria combined with the trend of increasingly frequent and intense storms, exemplifies the escalating threats posed by rapid climate change. In the aftermath, Maria was one of the most destructive hurricanes in Puerto Rican history causing catastrophic damage to the island’s infrastructure, power grid, and ecosystems resulting in thousands of deaths. As a consequence of this storm, it sent a universal message verifying that the environment was irrevocably altered through human impact as witnessed by the devastating toll this catastrophic storm took on the citizens of Puerto Rico.
The Age of the Anthropocene became the impetus to launch this project motivated by utilizing this topic as a clarion call for dialog and civic engagement. As curators, our intent for this collaboration is to send a message to viewers as to how as artists the diverse language of printmaking and the multiple can be a transformative, pro-active tool to promote climate messaging.
Resurgimiento : Over Land and Sea
Organizer: Myles Calvert
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
Participants: Austin Armstrong, Myles Calvert, Carolina Norma Salinas de la Cruz, Andrew Deutsch, Judith Martinez – Estrada, Jill Graham, Jonathan Greene Emily Martin, Kelsey Miller, Carolyn Muskat, Tim Pauszek, Joseph Scheer, Sam Sloan-Weichert
This will be an evolutional project involving the creation of one print that manifests itself through awareness of transformation. Where there will be a finished print, all participants have been asked to reconsider their original, and with the air of change, begin to approach the work with renewed eyes and modification. How might this work become influenced by the developments (ie. The artist’s ability to reflect, reproach, reimagine, passage of time, consideration, do-over, second chances) that are all around us. What has happened and what will become?
Using the medium of stone lithography, artists were asked to create a print edition (Part One) with paper dimensions measuring 22” x 11”. Strictly using the medium of stone lithography, experimental methods such as transfers, photographic approaches, and advancements of image generation on the stone were encouraged.
Upon ‘completion’ of the above edition, and following the theme and ethos of the portfolio, artists were asked to consider a changed state to their original intentions (layers, colors, image placement, meaning). Artists are asked to question what the passage of time has allowed them to realize, observe, regret, and/or see. Approaching the print again (Part Two), using the same or altered versions of the original positives, artists are asked to create another 22” x 11” edition.
We all come from Somewhere
Organizers: Calliandra Hermanson & Juana Estrada Hernandez
Exhibition Location: Liga de Arte de San Juan
Participants: Adam Noah Berman, Ben Iluzada, Ben Schoenburg, Calliandra Hermanson, Crystal Hammerschmidt, Emmaline Soloman, Erin DiGiovanni, Gisela M. Ramirez, Hannah Plotkin, Juana Estrada Hernandez, Jessica Gross, Robyn Wall, Robbie Sugg, Trevor Mock
Migration, Immigration, and Emigration are all terms that are tossed around in U.S. politics to address displacement of marginalized groups of people. These methods of travel often force communities to flee their homes for a chance at a better life.
This exchange provides an opportunity to foster a dialogue and cultural exchange with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of narratives. These narratives can range from migration, history, and movements through landscapes. After all, with each successive migration creates the space for the next generation and these movements can create a new history.
Tidalectics: A Marine Biology Print Portfolio
Organizer: Eveline Kolijn
Exhibition Location: TBA
Participants: René Arceo partnered with: Dr. Jasper de Goeij, Pepe Coronado, partnered with Maria Villalpando, Umberto Giovannini, partnered with Dr. Amanda Spivak, Tracy Hill, partnered with Dr. Stuart Sandin, Jill Ho-You, partnered with Dr. Illiana Baums, Eveline Kolijn, partnered with Dr. Forest Rohwer, Poli Marichal, partnered with D. Antoni Mignucci, Natasha Russell, partnered with Dr. Mark Vermeij, Melissa Smith, partnered with Dr. Valerie Chamberland, Koichi Yamamoto, partnered with Dr. Gregory Folz
TIDALECTICS is an art-science portfolio, in which invited printmakers are paired with marine biology researchers, to create a print based on/inspired by the research from the scientist. I invited ten international artists to participate in the portfolio.
The portfolio edition of 14 will consist of 11 prints, 11 letterpress pages with text by the scientist on the referenced research, a forward, a colophon, and a title page with an edition number.
Earth / Mother
Organizer: Elizabeth Castaldo
Exhibition Location: Universidad de Puerto Rico Recinto, Río Piedras (UPRRP), Art Building
Participants: Hannah Adair, Breslin Bell, Kala’i Blakemore, Laura Byrne, Cynthia Lollis and Daniela Deeg, Elizabeth Castaldo, Sue Carrie Drummond, Brandie Dziegiel, Jamie Lee Girodat, Anna Brooke Greene, Nicki Koning, Tikva N. Lantigua, Heather Leier, Melissa Mandel, Lujan Perez Hernandez, Hailey Quick, Ashley L. Schick, Catherine Stack, Kaleena Stasiak, Bryn Sumner, Becky Thera, Kylie Millward, Rosane Viegas, and Tammy Wofsey
This portfolio considers the intersection of women’s rights and environmental issues. The simultaneous assaults on the environment and women’s bodily autonomy create an interesting parallel. We hear the same male politicians argue one day that women do not have the right to choose what happens to our bodies and the need to allow drilling and mining on protected land the next. What do these issues have in common, especially when we see that the aggressors in both cases are largely the same? How does the destruction of the earth in pursuit of fossil fuels relate to the need to control women’s bodies? What are the internal conflicts involved with motherhood when fervent climate change denial is creating an ever more uncertain future for life on this planet? How does the fervent denial of climate change relate to the recent spate of bans on abortion and rape apologia in the US? How does the way a culture treats women and the environment manifest in society? What is the relationship between the earth’s ability to create and sustain life with that ability within women?