The Festival

Faísca International Riso Festival is an event focused on autonomous publishing and printed art. It is aimed at publications that are not usually found in large stores or traditional bookstores, and that connect artists and the audience through paper. 

Its focus is on zines, artists’ books, posters and other printed matter made by artists, groups, studios or small publishing houses, which are actively involved in processes ranging from the first ideas, designing, printing, finishing, to the publication’s circulation. Freedom of creation and experimentation are common features of these works.

The current event’s edition, which started in 2020, is the premiere of Faísca as a festival and as a virtual meeting. It invites artists, designers, publishers, and other people of several countries, which are involved in autonomous publishing: a practice that is not guided by market standards or large-scale logic, and that does not need many intermediaries in the process.

The program includes talks and interviews, debates and lectures, workshops, virtual printing labs, visual experiments and the release of printed publications. The festival began in September 2020 and inaugurated its web shop in the same year, extending its activities to 2021. The main platform for following the program is Faísca’s YouTube channel.

Creative processes are at the core of this 2020 edition’s proposal, considering printing as part of them.

Riso printing – with its peculiarities and possibilities, the autonomy that this tool provides and the potential of its limitations – is a trigger for exchanges on creative paths that go from the idea to materialization, with ink on paper, of artists’ books, zines and other productions.

Virtual Experience

The Festival was supposed to debut in July 2020, and it was planned to be a three-day on-site event in the Brazilian city Belo Horizonte. With the impacts generated by the pandemic, the organization faced the challenge of holding the event in a safe way for participants, public, and staff, developing this edition as a Virtual Experience. 

⇒ Access guests and program here.