Print inductions at RCA and more.. /  by Salama Nasib

College registration started on Monday September 26th, and I had to run and finish my registration process during the first few days. After that all we had to do was to attend welcoming lectures and introductions to the college-wide facilities. It was a great opportunity to familiarize ourselves with the college and its rules, policies, ...etc. 

However, the fun part began later on when we started the print inductions. Print students were divided into 3 different groups that kept in rotating to take all three inductions. The three inductions included an introduction to Intaglio printing, Screen-printing and Lithography printing. They were an intensive two-days each inductions, but definitely worth it. All of the 1st year print students come in from different excellent backgrounds, yet each one of us discovered something new during those inductions. The print facilities are amazing at RCA, and honestly I can't wait to start producing work at the RCA studios!

Pictures above explain what we did during those inductions. Some of the work were group efforts, others were independent works. We also had the opportunity to present our work to the print department faculty and all of 1st year print students. It was a great way to get to know each other and it was very clear to us why each one of us got accepted. Such an amazing group with superb talents and skills. Let's see how we will impress each other over the next months :)

Finally, dissertation paper. Yup, we started having lectures on it, and we are to finish writing the whole dissertation paper by the end of the first year. Yay...more writing and reading, slightly less studio time for the first year. Let's see :)

Oh, and the second year print students threw a welcome party for us! It was lovely meeting all of the second year students indeed. They brought "halal" drinks for me and played some arabic music as well! Ha! The print department is indeed one of the sweetest and best departments at RCA. Bless them. 

More updates in the coming days. London is great so far. Can't keep up with all the events here and there!

Enjoy.

 

New chapter. New adventure. MA IN PRINT!! /  by Salama Nasib

Most of you are already aware of the big news that have been circulating here and there. If you haven't already don't worry - you haven't missed a lot! 

I just wanted to announce that I have been successfully accepted to continue my MA in Print at the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London! Hooray! 

So it is a two years program focusing on various disciplines and discussions on printmaking in the contemporary world. It involves lectures as well as studio practice, and of course the final dissertation paper. Exciting times!

Continuing my MA studies have been one of my short-term goals since I graduated from Zayed University. My first option was Rhode Island School of Design, but by the end of last year I compared both universities and felt London is the one. I got in to both Camberwell university of the Arts and to RCA, and the final selection was the latter. I mean it's the top school in the whole world for Arts..wasn't tough to choose! :)

This dream wouldn't have happened without the opportunity of being part of the Salama Bint Hamdan Emerging Artist Fellowship program (SEAF), as we inaugurated the program in 2013/14, and half of us successfully are continuing Masters in various universities including in the UK and in USA. So happy for everyone and for the opportunities awaiting us all. 

More pictures and discoveries will be shared in the upcoming days for sure. Keep checking the blog section as well as the portfolio for new artworks to be shared. 

On to new beginnings and new studio craziness :)

Enjoy.

Her Patterns /  by Salama Nasib

In celebration of ADMAF's 20th anniversary, they had organized an exhibition that captures the spirit of the UAE and celebrates the anniversary by featuring 20 specially commissioned pieces, as well as showcasing 30 works by renowned local artists at the Portrait of a Nation exhibition hosted at Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. 

I was amongst the commissioned artists and was asked to create an installation piece. I remember Nina Heydemann and Dana Abusido - ADMAF representatives - approaching me with the idea of creating an installation for this show, and I was so honored to have been selected to showcase my work with ADMAF. I remember I was very happy as well to have been asked to create an installation piece as I was so eager to do so ever since I became a full-time artist. Back then I was busy planning and getting ready to head to East Lansing as part of the Past Forward traveling show in the US, so the minute I came back I had to roll my sleeves up and get on my proposal, which magically did happen in the last minute!

Her Patterns is inspired from my family’s portraits from the 80s and 90s, especially my mother’s. Since childhood I had always been fascinated by my mother's choice of fabrics and patterns, and had always viewed them to be beautiful and mesmerising until today. While visiting the old albums I came to notice those fabrics and patterns once again, and was able to recall some of them which gave me an enchanting and a bittersweet nostalgia all at once.

The proposed installation was to extract those patterns from mother’s dresses, re-create them and transform them into a new pattern, print them on paper, then cut-out the negative areas. It ended up being a lino-print pattern on a laser-cut fabric that was over 5 meters in height! Crazy! The installation idea was inspired from the photo of my mother wearing her sari as shown in the first picture above. My installation piece was to hint the elegant folding of a traditional Sari without screaming Sari. I kept on experimenting with various fabrics types including cotton, Satan Tafta, CURTAINS...etc! I also played a lot with the design and had to adopt the Ai files to work with the laser machine I was using. Origin Base was the studio where I went and laser-cut my fabrics at. It's a maker space, and I was the first one to try laser-cutting on fabric over there, hence the many experiments and trials. Amer Al Dour is a well-established architect friend who shared the laser cutting journey with me. He was a great support, and we both experimented a lot and went into brainstorming crazily to make sure this piece comes to life. It finally did so yay, and the decision was to get a roll of a curtain fabric from IKEA and laser-cut that one roll continuously without cutting the fabric in-between. Can you imagine that? Yes? Yeah? Let's take a moment of silence and appreciate all those times when I had to make sure each new pattern edge registered with the previous edge. Thank you.

 Well, that wasn't the only challenge :) Talking scale-wise, this piece was 4 meters in height (hung), but technically the fabric was around 6 or 6,5 meters in total before folding it. It was very tricky to hang it, and I had to try hanging it few times at the shooting warehouse before deciding on a certain system. Until the installation day at Emirates Palace I had no idea if my installing system would work 100%, the way I would want it to look, but gladly it did, and it happened with the support of the smart Arial (isn't it a cool dude's name? :D) who worked with the installation company that was hired. 

Last thing to mention about this installation is the repetitive printing gesture of the pattern. I was hand-carving on lino, inking it manually, then printing it by hand repeatedly on that 6.5 meters fabric. It was done for me, for my own relief as I wanted to embed those memories and of those beautiful patterns inside my brain. I hoped this would help me in achieving this, and I hope it did remind the audience of our beautiful patterns of the past. Overall I am happy with the outcome of this piece, and I do hope it gets exhibited in different locations as well. 

Thank you to ADMAF, friends and family for your support in realizing this piece. 

Enjoy. 

Risograph Printing Workshop /  by Salama Nasib

Yes that's right! so I finally tried Riso printing at a workshop hosted by Toil & Tinker on March 12. I say finally because: A) as far as I know there aren't any other Riso printers in the whole UAE except for Toil & Tinker. B) I ain't a big fan of it to be honest! However, I thought it was worth trying and seeing what all the fuss is about. It is a very interesting process for sure, and I can definitely see the point in recommending it for making zines and such. 

Starting off with imagery, it can be a collage of magazines and newspapers strips, or a handmade drawing using markers, pens, pencils or paints. Basically anything that can create a mark is good to go. I loved this a lot as I used graphite and markers together and it really gave an interesting result. Having this option is very helpful as well as it gives the final print a handmade quality so this is a bonus for those who like to work with hands. 

Moving on to the notion of building layers. It is quiet similar to screen-printing as well, where multiple layers can be printed on top of each other following registration marks. There is no limit to how many layers one can add. The only difference in the comparison here is that you do not need to have the final layers drawn in black colour, which again is a huge bonus. In fact, it is advisable to colour each layer differently so this makes the process even easier + faster. 

Now the printer itself. Well, I can say it's a hybrid of a normal digital printer and screen-printing! It's similar to screen-printing in the sense you register the imagery (layer) onto a mesh-kind-of thing. This is done right after feeding the huge ink cartridge into the printer, and the printer scans the image. From there on the machine keeps on producing hundreds of prints of that singular layer like a normal printer. The printer also has more options to select and adjust from such as changing the contrast level of the colours. For each layer the ink cartridge is replaced, and the final outcome is a beautiful multicoloured layers of your imagery. Prints can be turned into zines or posters or more.

Overall, it is a fun process indeed, and I definitely learned something new. Conclusion: Riso printing is faster, easier, and ideal for mass production. let's see if I will use it in the future!