Funny thing about social media, you sometimes reconnect with people you did not expect.

Almost a year ago, when I purchased the Risograph, I was looking for other studio’s all around to find inspiration, best practices and give myself an idea for different options of what I could offer. And that’s when I came across SARA - not only was it based in my native country Mexico, but the colourful instagram feed was fantastic! I googled further and it was a very slik website with great resources. They had just had an exhibition at a friends’ restaurant/bar in Mexico City - so I asked him how he knew SARA.

Turns out, the person behind SARA was another childhood friend, Rodrigo! We actually all went to a small school and spent from primary till graduating high school together. Because I left to study abroad I didn't keep much track of where everyone had gone to. So this was a really nice surprise! We started chatting and made plans to meet up during my winter holidays.

Visiting his workspace was incredible. SARA is actually a branch of the small family business Rodrigo set up with his sister. It offers a variety of services like custom made stationary, stamps, gold foil and printing of course. The work he does with the risograph is mainly to help local artists reproduce their work in an affordable way.

We actually had similar views of how we wanted to work together with the artists instead of just printing orders. His name has grown a lot in the last 2 years, not only in Mexico but also Latin America, printing for a variety of illustrators, both very known as well as emerging. Which in turn inspired me to pursue this line of work at Riso Pop as well.

Before I left, we decided to do more collaborations, starting with a simultaneous exhibition Mexico City - Amsterdam that’s currently being planned during the last weekend of March, as well as a sharing of prints. I have come home with a pack of amazing prints to sell here and I will be gathering my own to send back to Mexico City!

This visit was really inspiring and it’s always nice to meet like-minded creatives. I hope to visit more riso studio’s this year and build new relationships.

For now, I invite you to come to the studio and check out the amazing variety of prints that we have from SARA for sale, or keep an eye on Instagram for updates!

Follow SARA at: https://www.instagram.com/s.a______r.a/