Mini Print offers creative platform for artists
Courtesy of Mini Print
By Hallie Bradley
Art can bring people together. And that's exactly what
owners Samantha Blumenfeld and Albert Che are striving to do. Hoping to build community through art, the pair founded their studio specializing in independent zine publishing and small artist edition screenprints last November.
Blumenfeld, who majored in printmaking and minored in painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, explained, “screenprinting wasn't actually my favorite process _ I really enjoy relief and letterpress printing _ but I found myself constantly in the screenprinting studio making art or working shifts as a studio monitor. I liked how fast and accessible it was compared to other processes.” Though screenprinting wasn't Blumenfeld's first passion, she was pulled back into it in Korea after working in new media for a number of years.
Blumenfeld works alongside Che who studied illustration at Pratt Institute and did a lot of social activism work, volunteering at community print shops and bike co-ops and teaching art to orphaned teens. That experience must have left an impression as Blumenfeld and Che are currently mentoring and training a young man who was an orphan but aged out of the system here in Korea. They hope to continue to work as mentors with marginalized teens and young adults providing an artistic outlet.
After some organization and development of ideas and plans, Blumenfeld and Che's first space was a sublet in the Ttukseom area. Working there for a year creating pieces and developing editions with different artists allowed them to come to terms with what they really needed and wanted to do. Che said of the sublet experience, “since we were in a shared space this was immensely difficult. All of our equipment had to be modular and able to be dismantled for easy storage, which meant every time we printed we had to set up the entire studio all over again. Printing was slow and it could take almost a week just to print one edition.”
By chance, the two discovered the Ttukdo New Wave program which was established as a nonprofit focused on traditional market revival. They were accepting applicants for young entrepreneurs and Blumenfeld and Che were accepted and mentored by Kim Kang, a political performance artist. Through the program, the pair were able to find their current space in Seongsu-dong, the “Brooklyn of Seoul.”
Their space now consists of the Mini Print studio as well as the Sargoji Alternative Art Space, a creative platform for creators and community members to host exhibitions, film screenings, lectures, performances and other events. Other programs to look out for at Mini Print include screenprinting in which attendees can learn the foundations of the process along with other techniques. There are open studio hours available and creative coping to allow for therapy through art. There are meetings for men and women that provide techniques to process and cope with the added stress and anxiety associated with trauma. There is also a women's only figure drawing class and they host specialized workshops to offer different types of classes.