Risographs & Chemigrams — Working with Family Archives

Risographs & Chemigrams — Working with Family Archives is an intergenerational workshop that will introduce the mediums of risograph printing and chemigrams to participants. Facilitated by Isabella Marie García, this workshop invites participants to use their family archives as the foundation for the concrete and abstract image-making. Both mediums are key to the artist’s practice and present in her installation found on view in the Told, Retold: The Pedagogy of Knowing & Becoming exhibition at Greenspace Miami.

Risograph printing is a digital printing technique that uses stencils to transfer ink to paper, resulting in bold
colors, tactile textures, and perfect imperfections. Participants will learn about the history of risograph before practicing their own printing with a PrintGocco, a popular at-home printing device produced by Japanese company Riso Kagaku starting in the late 1970s. Participants are encouraged to bring their own family photographs that they would like to print, while also being provided archival familial images sourced from the Miami-Dade Public Library System.

Chemigrams are created by forcing a chemical reaction between photographic paper and a resist — typically a form of varnish or liquid i.e. oil, honey, sugar, etc. — and utilizing traditional darkroom chemistry to create an experimental visual result. Participants will learn the history and basics of this experimental photo technique before creating their own results with photo paper and resists provided by the facilitator. Participants will leave with concrete and abstract images sourced from personal and collective family archives.

The workshop will serve to uphold the indisputable value of the tactile to intergenerational storytelling and material preservation as living testaments of familial lore.