Participatory Projects: Cuban Collaboration 2023

Taller De Experimental de Grafica, Havana, Cuba

In late October 2023, I and 8 other American artists had an immersive cultural experience collaborating with Cuban Printmakers at the Taller De Experimental de Grafica in Havana.

Annie Silverman and Leonardo Gonzalez Hernandez, administrator of the Taller Grafica pondering an octopus stencil.

Prior to this collaboration I’d participated in a project, the Paper Boat Flotilla, devised by Mary Sherwood, an independent curator from Los Angeles, where artists were invited to create double sided prints on Japanese paper on the theme of water, which could then be folded into paper boats. The project grows and changes with each group of people and boats that are involved. The project has been exhibited in LA, Venice, and now Havana. There are currently 64 artists who have made boats. In Cuba we made prints that were folded into boats, as well as 2 large prints which will be folded into 2 large boats, one of which will go to the Southern Graphics Council Conference in Puerto Rico in 2025.

We communicated mostly through the language of ink and print, although English and Spanish were also used!

The prints here are populated with mermaids that can be, in a Cuban context, water goddesses. The blocks that I used to create these prints came with me to Cuba, are in our collaboration, and came back for more printing at ABRAZOS PRESS in Somerville, Massachusetts. I feel like the influences of this trip are still extremely new, and I’ve not had that much time to process my impressions, but this is a beginning.

Images of the boats and this collaboration can be seen on Instagram: #paperboats2023.

There will be 2 trips to the Havana Bienniale which will have a printmaking project as part of the trip.

For more information.www.latinartspace.com

Entering the Taller Grafica. The sign reads: Gallery of Prints

Mary Sherwood Brock, the originator of the Paper BOAT FLOTILLA PROJECT and “Nene” Gonzalez Hernandez printing the Americans' collaborative print in the Taller.

Nene using his strength to print the collaborative print with one of their old presses, possibly from the International Lithographic Company of the 1800’s.

Mary Sherwood Brock with a collagraph plate that would print a watery design that she brought with her for the project from LA.

Collaborative print with stencils, this portion by Julie Evanoff, Ruchika Madan and my Octopus.

Cuban artist Norberto Marrero Pirez and Mary discussing placement of small blocks and stencils on the print. Julie Evanoff is working with a larger stencil.

Some of the elements brought from the states and created on site for the collaboration. Work by Katherine Freygang, Ruchika Madan, Nancy Cusack and Judith Amdur.

Master lithographer Ian Marcos Gutierrez push up printing using an old limestone litho stone wrapped in packing tape from the International Lithography Co., original home of the Taller in the 1800s.

Some of the Cuban printmakers starting the printing process on the Taller floor. Due to the large paper and the differing thickness/size of the blocks, hand printing seemed the safest way to proceed.

Norberto Marrero Pirez, Osmeivy Ortega Pacheco, Angel Ramirez Roque,Ibrahim Miranda Ramos, printing by Rolando Rodrigues.

The Cuban artists’ prints exhibited at the Loft Hotel in Havana for the opening of the Paper Boat Flotilla Exhibition.

Closeups of some of the woodblock prints in the exhibition.

Slide show photo credits: Annie Silverman, Ruchika Madan and Kneisys Gonzalez.

Read my article “Travelling Flotilla” about this project which was published in Pressing Matters, Issue 25.