Gen Z has made headlines recently for turning to analog media and the slower pace of life synonymous with a pre-internet world. Alongside DVDs and print magazines, snail mail has also been on the rise as more people flock to spaces untouched by an algorithm or AI.
Even before the endless scroll subsumed much of our collective psyche, though, Gabriella Marcella was already combating digital fatigue through the design studio Risotto. Marcella founded Risotto in 2012, just after graduating from university, where she fell in love with risograph printing. She purchased her first machine secondhand and set up shop in her bedroom before moving to the Glue Factory, a former warehouse that still houses the studio along with other creatives.
By 2017, Marcella realized she wanted to share others’ work, too, and launched the Riso Club, which mails four postcards by four different artists to subscribers each month. “As a print fanatic, I’m guilty of having a lot of prints that just sit in a cupboard, so I think having them as a useful object is really important,” the designer told It’s Nice That.
The project grew from there, and this month, Risotto is celebrating its 100th mailing with a large-scale retrospective that presents all 400 artworks together for the first time. On view from April 11 to 19 at the Glue Factory, the exhibition celebrates the sheer breadth of styles, aesthetics, and messages that have been translated into a risograph print. Whether the artist lives in Bogota, Damascus, Philadelphia, or Melbourne, their work is shipped to patrons around the world, allowing them to reach new audiences wherever they are. Marcella adds:
Having something like a subscription that allows you to consume creative media on a completely different cycle, as slow as snail mail is, is really refreshing. I also think having that physical object in front of you that you can interact with means you engage with the work more, you might read the caption at the back, find out who the artist is, and so on.
For those just joining the club or unable to see the exhibition in person, Risotto released a searchable digital atlas of all 400 works. Find more on the studio’s website and follow along on Instagram.
