The Anachronism, an exhibition by fourth-year Communication Design student Alex Mikail Bernatzky, featured unique, hand-printed letterpress designs and a brief presentation on the history of printing.
The Anachronism, an exhibition by fourth-year Communication Design student Alex Mikail Bernatzky, featured unique, hand-printed letterpress designs and a brief presentation on the history of printing.
The 23-year-old Rhodes University Journalism student turned his final university project into a letterpress print exhibition that took place at the Eastern Star Gallery on Monday 11 November.
Bernatzky, who had been preparing the exhibition for the past 6 months, based it on Japanese cultural concept of 'ichi-go ichi-E', which is meant to remind people of the unique and irretrievable nature of every moment.
His designs are also inspired by the infinite repetition of fractal patterns in nature, which can be found anywhere from lightning and romanesco broccoli to human DNA. Just as every person's DNA is completely unique, so is every letterpress print. "I would often make mistakes with the pressing, and have to redo them, and I then noticed that even though each pressing was essentially the same they would all have variations that would make them unique," he explained.
Bernatzsky says his work explores how specific events and infinitite repetitions are always intertwined. "The letterpress is also significant because it sparked off a sequence of events that lead to modern publication as we know it now," Bernatzky added.
