Raging Sea Risograph Prints

 

Migrants in Culture started in 2018 as a volunteer-led advocacy network aiming to visibilise and challenge the impact of the Hostile Environment on the culture sector and its workers. They are now developing into a migrant-led design agency. They are guided by a vision of culture without borders. They work at the intersection of the arts and culture, migrant justice movements and local governance, in collaboration with migrant culture workers (artists, designers, organisers and researchers), migrant organisers, civic and educational actors, and allies.

We invited Migrants in Culture to facilitate a zine-making workshop at Rabbits Road Press, a community Risograph print studio and publishing press. During the workshop, we learnt how to use the Risograph machine. Designed to be a high-volume, speedy and low cost photocopier, Riso machines use a stencil-based printing process and colourful inks to produce a result somewhere between silkscreen and offset lithography. Originally manufactured by the Japanese RISO Kagaku Corporation in 1986, Risos were popularly used by schools, prisons, churches, political and activist groups to mass produce posters, flyers, pamphlets and small books.