IMC 2024 Echizen submission

Submitted to the juried exhibition held in conjunction with the 2024 International Mokuhanga Conference in Echizen — Japan's centuries-old papermaking center in Fukui Prefecture — this print emerged from Steele-Makasci's residency at MI-LAB (Mokuhanga Innovation Laboratory) earlier that same year. Echizen has produced [washi](/glossary/washi) for over 1,500 years, and IMC submissions traditionally favor works printed on locally milled [kozo](/glossary/kozo) papers, whose long fibers absorb the successive layers of water-based pigment that mokuhanga requires. Without a press, the printmaker relies on hand pressure through the [baren](/glossary/baren) to register multiple blocks and pull the subtle [bokashi](/glossary/bokashi) gradations characteristic of the medium. As an interdisciplinary artist whose practice across painting, printmaking, and book arts addresses gender, environmental, and economic inequities, Steele-Makasci's IMC submission situates her social-justice concerns within a transnational community of contemporary mokuhanga practitioners working to extend the technique beyond its historical [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e) subject matter.