At the end of April I had to the pleasure to be invited to Milan by the Letterpress Group, Nove Punti to take part in a print workshop/exhibition entitled The Letterpress Workers International Summit 2012. Alongside a selection of other Letterpress Practitioners from across Europe we would be staying in the Archive Giovanni Sacchi in the Sesto San Giovanni area of Milan, and printing for 4 days to create artworks in front of the public that would then be exhibited in the space. The brief was :
What if electricity was no longer available? What if contemporary industrial processes (like offset printing and publishing) are out of order? What if only lettepress can spread news in a post crisis world?
The Letterpress operator is still the owner of his production tools and facilities, he still has got a deep connection with machines, he’s still in total control concerning the output, even if sometimes chance plays a big role. A really different situation compared with the actual standard of creative work (a digital workstation, a bi-dimensional screen, where design momentum is separated to the production one.)
Working next to John Cristopher, Pete Burke, Alexander Cooper and Rose Gridneff of Workshop and Thomas Gravemaker we set, inked, discussed, informed and printed for the weekend. It is always a pleasure to see other printers at work and I loved the ability to freely exchange different techniques and methods relating to our medium.
Thank you so much to the Nove Punti for inviting me and for being such great hosts! I look forward to next years!
