RisoLAB Talks: Maite Merida

Join us on Thursday, October 1st at 6:30 pm for RisoLAB Talks vol. 4 featuring our Spring 2026 RisoLAB Artist in Residence Maite Mérida. Mérida will discuss the project she created at the RisoLAB and how the Risograph process and the space itself contributed to the final manifestation of this work. The talk will be followed by a discussion and Q&A moderated by RisoLAB faculty member and lead technician Sarula Bao @bao__haus.

RSVP required via this link! Capacity is limited to 50 seats, first come first serve.

Thursday, October 1st

6:30-8:00 pm

School of Visual Arts

133 w. 21st, #101

New York, NY

10011

Crossword puzzles resemble, in their form, to reforestation techniques. At the same time, they represent the boundaries within which we cultivate and develop concepts, theories, and conjectures. Discourses on progress treat nature as a resource and lead us to believe that we are free. The human artifice of the world separates human existence from any purely natural environment, blurring any possible future. 

Artificio is a riso experimental bilingual book written in Spanish and translated into English. Modeled after crossword puzzles—with text serving as clues and grids for entering answers—it invites viewers to engage analytically with the work and intervene as human kind does to nature. Made out of paper, the primary product of the forestry industry, the cut out tree can prevail as a book that carries personal and collective questioning.

Maite Mérida @vocesendelay is a Chilean journalist, photographer and self taught bookmaker. Her work focuses on the relationship between humans and nature and how technology mediates that bond, looking for affective and political memories in an effort to explore how personal stories extend into the collective. Her artistic practice focuses on subverting the predetermined high-definition aesthetic of photographic devices, interested in disrupting the traditional interpretation of images by approaching them from a graphic point of view. She incorporates the use and critical examination of archives into an experimental process, viewing analog media not only as a means to construct and deconstruct images, but also as a statement regarding the persistence of materials.

The SVA RisoLAB was founded in 2015 by the MFAVN chair Nathan Fox and artist and printmaker Panayiotis Terzis as the first dedicated educational Risograph space in NYC. Since then, the Lab has become a leading and influential space for Risograph-based independent publishing and experimental print production for artists from all creative disciplines. The Lab offers a range of undergraduate and graduate as well as continuing education course offerings that are open to the public as well as an Artist in Residence program. Find out more at our website,and follow us on instagram.