Coinciding with the birth of the dx5 research group in 2004, an initiative arises among the teachers from the graphics department of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Pontevedra. Overwhelmed and satisfied with the high artistic level achieved by many of the students enrolled in the different subjects of the area and by the high quality of their formal proposals, dx5 chose to inaugurate an archive containing these first works with the participation and consent of the students.
However, with the passage of time, the need arose to give shape to this collection that was recurrently used for teaching in successive courses, but which had little projection outside the strictly academic environment of the Faculty. Therefore, the Print Factory I book project was initiated, whose aim is to go beyond a simple compilation of prints and graphic projects. To this end, the dx5 group team contacted artists, former students of the Faculty of Fine Arts in Pontevedra, who had continued their artistic career after graduation, in order to invite them to participate in this editorial project. They were joined by some of the students currently in their final year, and a selection of the most outstanding proposals was presented.
“The Print Factory I” therefore includes some of the most notable graphic proposals from the national scenario, all of them outputs –from several generations of novel artists– from the Faculty in Pontevedra. Likewise, and from the very moment it took shape, this book has become a reference for new batches of students from this University, who try to emulate the path drawn by these creators, knowing that they once were in their same situation.
“The Print Factory I” is the tangible result of a teaching project of the same name, which until now has been and will be managed in the future by members of the dx5 group linked to the graphics area at the University of Vigo. As set out in the project summary, the objective of this Estampa Contemporánea Bureau is to document how the main line of the dx5 research group, focused on fusion of new technologies and traditional graphic techniques, has materialised into the transfer of these results through their application in teaching.
In order to give it a definitive form and bring together this huge cast of different voices under a common framework, the participating artists were presented with a simple formal typology, which serves as a link to establish fictitious narratives between the different graphic proposals contained in this book.
Under the title “The Print Factory”, the work generated at a very precise moment was collected, it being the fruit of the synergy between the teaching of graphic art and the activity of the students themselves. It is, in short, a modest attempt to synchronise this dilution of individual voices within a collective project, which questions the meaning and necessity of Multiple Artworks today.