[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s LA Art blog takes a look at Joy as Resistance: Printmaking as Community Power at the 2025 Summit.
On June 28th, Self Help Graphics & Art, in collaboration with East Side Print Fair, hosted the Joy as Resistance: 2025 Printmaking Summit, transforming Plaza de la Raza in Los Angeles into a lively celebration of creative resistance, communal memory, and printmaking as a democratized form of art and activism.
Under the interim leadership of Paulina Flores, the daylong event invited artists, families, and cultural workers to engage with printmaking not only as a medium but as a message. Through hands-on workshops, public panels, live performances, and curated art markets, the summit reaffirmed the role of joy in collective liberation.
A Living Studio: Workshops and Demonstrations
The heart of the summit beat in its open-air studios and intimate learning spaces. Drop-in block and Styrofoam printing, facilitated by artist Natalie Godinez, welcomed children and adults alike, underscoring the event’s intergenerational spirit and emphasis on accessibility. Tactile and direct, the session invited participants to experience the immediacy and satisfaction of making a mark (and freeing yourself from any insecurity).
Ticketed workshops offered deeper explorations. Usen Gandara led papermaking sessions that turned pulp into poetic surface, while Pavel Acevedo introduced tessellation through linoleum carving—a meditative, pattern-forward technique rooted in repetition and transformation.
Live demonstrations by Victor Rosas and Gisela Ramirez rounded out the instructional offerings. Rosas’ collagraph demo highlighted texture-building and press layering, while Ramirez’s block printing underscored how tradition and innovation can coexist within print practice.
The Printed Word as Protest: A Curated Panel
Curated by Claudia Zapata, the summit’s panel discussion provided critical context. Featuring artists and cultural stewards Jackie “Chicas Peligrosas” Hernandez, Dewey Tafoya, Juliette Bellocq of the Corita Art Center, and Emily Sulzer of the Center for Political Graphics, the conversation moved fluidly between personal narrative and collective history.
From Chicana activism to archival labor, the panelists traced printmaking’s enduring role in visual resistance – making visible what systems erase and empowering those too often excluded from dominant narratives. The discussion framed joy not as escapism, but as a tactical and vital act of defiance.
Sound, Poetry, and the Print Fair
Music and spoken word created a sonic counterpart to the inked surfaces. Performances by Quitapenas, Irene Diaz, and Heart Shaped Locket brought rhythm and heart to the afternoon. Poets Iris de Anda and Amy Shimshon-Santo lent lyricism to the event, weaving language as a form of witness and beauty.
The marketplace (featuring local artists like Kalli Arte and Ernesto Vazquez) was a rich landscape of original prints, zines, and ephemera. Tables buzzed with, exchange, and appreciation, reinforcing the community’s deep-rooted culture of mutual support.
Toward a Collective Future
With programming that was as comprehensive as it was joyful, the Joy as Resistance Summit illustrated how art can act as both sanctuary and strategy. Under Flores’ thoughtful guidance, Self Help Graphics & Art demonstrated its continued commitment to cultivating spaces where artistic practice intersects with social practice.
In a time of cultural precarity and collective fatigue, this gathering asserted that joy (especially joy made by hand, shared in public, and rooted in heritage) is not frivolous. It is, in fact, essential.
For those seeking to understand printmaking not just as image production but as relationship-building and community care, this summit was a masterclass. And for Los Angeles, it was yet another reminder that art can still move at the speed of people.
