Printing in the Park

First the students visited Helen Mirra’s show at Raffaella Cortese Gallery in Milan and described in groups, the different works the artist created during her walks around the cities, printing natural objects she found with ink on fabric. The artist normally then exhibits her pieces in a very regular rhythm, contrasting the irregularity and the impossibility to preview the results, working with natural materials such as jute, line, twigs or leaves. The students were quite astonished by Helen Mirra’s work, because of its simplicity and its minimal gesture. When we started to imitate her formula and printed directly in the park with black ink leaves and twigs on our white cotton, the pupils had a lot of fun and liked the immediate impact of the experiment as well as the printing experience with every day materials which are always available.