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It was an unconventional way of rolling out prints, but an industrial steamroller was the machinery behind a newcomers’ summer art project to celebrate Culture Days in Regina.
Youths from the Regina Open Door Society (RODS) worked with staff from Articulate Ink, a Regina-based printing company, to create an art print that would be pressed with a steamroller.
“We’re steamroller printing, which basically takes a form of print making that we do in our studio on a day-to-day basis and enlarges it to a big scale so we can print it with a steamroller,” co-director Michelle Brownridge explained.
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The theme of the designs revolved around refugees’ impressions of Canada.
Thirteen-year-old Mohammed Quraishi came to Canada eight years ago from India. He drew a flag of India and a Canadian flag connected by an airplane.
“We drew stuff and it was about coming to Canada and what we thought in our daily lives here,” Quraishi said.
“Because I was five, I only remembered saying ‘hello Canada’ and falling asleep,” he remembered.
The designs were drawn on a four-feet by eight-feet wooden board, carved and then covered in black paint. It was then pressed onto a sheet of linen by a steamroller.
RODS youth coordinator Roberto Misterio said the art project helps empower and integrate youths.
He said some of the refugees from Syria and Sudan arrived in Canada just this year.
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“I believe this kind of workshop really enables them to express their creativity and arouse their interest in art,” Misterio said.
The printing project is a first for Regina. Brownridge said she had seen steamroller printing in Toronto five years ago.
“We got it from the CAT rental store. They thought it was a really good use of their equipment,” she laughed.
“It’s definitely the first time that we’re doing this. It’s been a dream of ours for quite a few years.”
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