Printmaking Studio Propels RISD Students to Turn Words and Imagery into Catalysts for Change

College campuses have historically served as bastions of free speech, protest and self-expression, and the power of images, placards and other visual media has never been more apparent. Students in a fall studio called Printmaking and the Politics of Protest are mediating numerous social, economic, cultural and political differences as they learn to turn words and imagery into catalysts for change.

“The course examines the role of prints and printed matter in the context of political protest and the many ways people have supported social justice and sustainability issues through art,” says Associate Professor of Printmaking Tyanna Buie. “We’re creating and discussing images that help to define the issues impacting our own lives.”

The course is open to students outside of the Printmaking department, she adds, and provides a safe environment in which individuals from all disciplines can think critically about societal concerns while developing visual literacy. They’re investigating design elements such as line, shape, value, texture and color and the principles of organization—including balance, proportion and dominance—and learning to apply them to their own work.

At the beginning of the semester, the class visited the RISD Museum, where Andrew W. Mellon Curatorial Fellow Sarah Mirseyedi showed them political posters and prints dating back to the 1970s, many created by RISD students.

“This group of prints was put together between 2002 and 2003 by the artist collective Dirt Palace, which was mostly RISD alums,” Mirseyedi said as she slowly turned the posters over one by one. Many of the works decried the war in Iraq, but some in the larger collection speak to the evils of fascism and hate crimes directed at Asian-Americans. Others were created to support social justice movements like the Arab Spring and the call for women’s rights. 

Weeks later, the class gathered in Benson Hall to review prints they had made using the relief technique, many for the first time. The process involves carving a design into a wooden block, inking the raised surfaces that are created and then using the block to print the image on paper with a printing press.

Grad student Elysa Adams MFA 26 PR showed an image of a striking Black woman printed on fragile, rough-edged paper. “I like showing my people in a beautiful light,” she explained, “and I’m leaving it to the viewer to interpret the meaning and imagine the words.” Buie was taken with her delicate mark making and appreciated her desire to create work that changes the conversation about Black people. “Our story is bigger than all the sorrowful stuff,” she noted.

Junior Jiawei Jin 26 IL and grad student Seri Kwon MLA 25 made prints reflecting on issues that matter to each of them, Jin’s about animal welfare and Kwon’s about rising sea levels. An Illustration major exploring printmaking for the first time, Jin made a classic mistake many experience: neglecting to carve the lettering in reverse and causing the words to come out backwards on the paper. Her plan for the next iteration is to fix the lettering and try out other ink colors and papers. When Kwon shared her piece, the class agreed that the lettering was spot on but the images could use more detail. Buie recommended that she start the next version with a laser cutter and then go in with a chisel to enhance the lines.

“I’d like each of you to think about what you would do differently the next time,” Buie advised. “Sometimes you can’t tell how the image is going to come out until you print, and then you go back and make changes. Remember that people have been doing this for thousands of years. Trust the process.”

Simone Solondz / photos by Kaylee Pugliese
December 5, 2024