25 Hour International Print Challenge 2024 in Venice

Take nine printmakers; young, experienced, and coming from various areas and with different stories. Lock them in the historic print shop in wonderful Venice for 25 hours. Combine it with midnight toasts and legends of the lagoon and you get the 25 Hour Print Challenge, launched by Limerick Printmakers in March 2024 to celebrate 25 years of the Irish print shop. With more than a day together, the 9 participants were involved in a series of joyful exchanges between presses, paper, and inks, all with the simple and pure aim of printing!

Involved in the challenge were: The Printing Girls (TPG), an all-female collective of South African-based artists who work in print; Chocolate Ink Studio in Maboneng, Johannesburg; STATTLAB e.V. Berlin association and printing house; Melbourne printmakers in Australia; The CIEC Foundation; Galicia International Center for Contemporary Prints; Todo o nada Serigrafía in Santiago, Chile; and the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica in Venice in Italy.

Over the 25 hours distant worlds became linked by the bond that only inkblots can mark. The Venice lock-in was organised by Roberta Feoli together with Alessia De Bortoli, printshop manager of the Scuola, and supported by Kate MacDonald, Erasmus intern, all linked together through Limerick Printmakers who selected and invited artists of relevance to get involved.

The invited Artists included: Guendalina Cristiano who spends her days traveling between her studio Nubîvago Print Studio in Piacenza and L’Armadillo Atelier 51r, an engraving laboratory in Florence; Giada Marcano who from Venezuela to Italy experiments with various artistic techniques; Cecilia Maran, a member of the MovingLab Venice Cultural Association and active engraver and graphic designer; Leonardo Marenghi, who has just inaugurated his solo show in Sala della Pescheria in Este; Massimo Spadari, a collaborator of independent publishing house Lazy Dog Press and workshop organiser; and Marco Trentin, a practicing artist and teacher of the Academy of Fine Arts in Verona. Altogether, a real selection of a young generation dedicated to printing!

Between a spritz break, pizza dinner, chat, confessions and a night with eyes wide open, the incredible marathon was recounted by organising constant live shows on social media. At the official end of the 25 hours which began on Saturday 16 March and ended at 11am the following Sunday morning, the doors of the Scuola were opened to the public to show the prints created.

Thanks to this incredible experience new bonds were born and different artists met, giving rise to new collaborations, and, as always, printmaking was a reason for sharing and magic.

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