textperiments
2017–Ongoing
Experiments in printing using a found typewriter.
textperiments
Interested in topics of loss, I found an archive of photographs of my mother, who passed away when I was four years old. I never got to know her, or speak to her; I don't even know what the sound of her voice was like. To bridge this gap between me and someone who I should be close to, I wanted to express this desire for closeness through writing, in some way.
I took these photographs and masked them into letterforms, specifically in the Helvetica typeface. Helvetica was designed as a modern typeface in the 20th century for its legibility, and neutrality; ironically, it has become co-opted as the iconic look of capital culture–we can see this typeface used by many companies today. Wanting to destabilize this look of cold neutrality with intimate material, I masked these photographs into the letterforms, which then began a series of investigations into printmaking and printing.
I wanted to see how I could print this design in interesting ways, so I decided to utilize lasercutting in my process for the first time. I explored many trials of etching my design onto acrylic, which I eventually mounted onto wood to create my own movable type of the design.
Below are process photos of my creations. I printed one set of A-Z by hand in the intaglio process, and another set through letterpress. Words were then created with the movable type set, used to describe my relationship to my mother.
Experiments in printing using a found typewriter.