Project Babel – the tower is being assembled in Finland

10 artists from Spike Print Studio are taking part in a collaborative project for printmakers’ PROJECT BABEL set up by Ratamo Printmaking and Photography Centre in Finland. Project Babel is an international printmakers’ project, to create a collaborative artwork based on Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting Tower of Babel (1563).

Project Babel is an international printmaking collaboration project. Originally 335 printmakers from 40 studios in 19 countries are creating together an artwork based on the painting “the Great Tower of Babel” (1563) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The idea of the project is to share the original image of the Tower in segments. The participants remake their shared segments in their own ways using different printmaking techniques. Finally all the works will be gathered again as a new Tower. Each artist’s segment (chosen in a lottery) is 13x17cm, and the gathered image will be around 230x320cm The result of the project will be exhibited in Galleria Ratamo (Jyväskylä, Finland) from December 14th 2023 to January 14th 2024. The opening is on December 13th, at 5pm-7pm. In the exhibition space, every segment will also be exhibited separately and there will be info panels of all the participating printmaking studios and their printmakers. Project Babel’s goal is to gather printmakers from all over the world and build new connections between studios. Collaboration allows us to create artwork made with diverse printmaking methods and styles. The process is interesting in its unpredictability; the result will emerge only when we gather all our work together and it will differ from the original image in many interesting ways. The ability to collaborate is an essential human characteristic. The original story to which Bruegel referred in his painting, also indicates a human striving to create and cooperate. We feel this forms an interesting context with regards to the present moment. The project is run by Team Babel, a personal group consisting of four printmakers Anni Huttu, Naoji Ishiyama, Kaisa Koljonen and Maria Pihl. They work as free artists at the printmaking studio Ratamo in Finland, and they created this project as an event for celebrating the 10th anniversary of Ratamo Printmaking- and Photography Centre.

Ratamo is run by Jyväskylä Art Museum. Ratamo Printmaking- and Photography Centre https://www.jyvaskyla.fi/en/ratamo-english Galleria Ratamo Veturitallinkatu 6, 40100 Jyväskylä, Finland Tel. +358 50 311 8901 ratamo@jyvaskyla.fi

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/galleriaratamo

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/galleriaratamo/ Instagram of the project: https://www.instagram.com/printmaking_project_babel/ Jyväskylä Art Museum: https://www.jyvaskyla.fi/e

Team Babel, Ratamo Printmaking & Photography Centre,Jyväskylä, Finland.