Em–Dash

Em—Dash is a South East London based studio + press. We experiment with the book-form, playfully publishing¹ work that spans across art-practice, design², research, and visual culture. Beyond books, we have worked across mediums of curation, film and radio. We also run workshops³ to share ideas, skills and facilitate collective making.

You can now visit our webshop^↗ to get your hands on some of the things we’ve made.

Em—Dash is operated⁴ by artist Saundra Liemantoro and designer Aarushi Matiyani.

1. Publishing is led by what we think deserves to be immortalised in print. Self-publishing through fingers touching paper and hands sewing pages, to form a living object. imo print is not dead!! Or I refuse for it to be.. Publishing is acknowledging histories that lie within tools, materials and methods we use to print, bind and assemble. Self-publishing is selfish, it is for us to be enjoyed by others. It’s a constant clash (or shall we call it a labour of love) between our moody, overworked machines with our moody, overworked selves.
2. Design is referencing, through text and image; across languages and cultures. It is asking questions like “how do you feel about this?” or “where do you think people might read this?” Design is sleeping on it, thinking it through and considering the kind of lives these objects might go on to live—after leaving our hands. It's in the physicalities of making; the lifting of RISO drums, folding of pages, pushing of needles. Design is slow and community-led, which is hard to maintain in a world so fast-paced and individualistic. It is the recognition of craft, and the dispelling of any hierarchies between designers and craftpersons; fair wages for all practices! It is holding ourselves accountable—by writing this manifesto.
3. Workshops are for access; access to design methodologies, to printing techniques and to our press library. It is fun being had, knowledge being shared and print being explored. Workshops as accessible alternatives to institutional sites of knowledge production. They are for anyone to partake in, encouraging them to think through the terms of writing, image making, curating and editing.
4. Operated out of Aarushi Matiyani and Saundra Liemantoro’s flat in South East London. Our ways of working occur at a pace accommodating to us and anyone we work with, while being kind to each other when things don’t go as we hope. #printislife but #wealsolikeotherthings We are grateful to learn from, operate with and around print friends and practitioners. We strive to make our creative process and experimentation public, and indulge in archiving our work with hopes that it would be enjoyed by others who might come across us irl or url.