Feb 16 — 20, 2026
MIWW workshop
Masters’ Interdisciplinary Workshops Week
Elaine Lopez, Parsons School of Design NYC
Bound Together
Open to all Master’s students
Collective Bookmaking Through Dialogue, Connection, and Risograph Printing
Bound Together is an interactive, dialog-based workshop that uses conversation and Risograph bookmaking as tools for connection, reflection, and collective meaning-making. Created in response to transactional modes of communication, it invites participants to slow down, listen deeply, and engage one another as whole people rather than roles or titles. Through paired dialogue and hands-on making, the workshop emphasizes presence, care, and shared experience.
Grounded in psychologist Arthur Aron’s research on intimacy and informed by dialogical art practices and thinkers such as David Bohm and James Baldwin, the workshop combines structured questions with collage, Risograph printing, and binding. Participants print pages reflecting their conversations and assemble them into a collaborative book. Rather than prioritizing polish or productivity, Bound Together values experimentation, attentive listening, and the radical act of making together.
Elaine Lopez is a Cuban American designer, researcher, and educator whose work uses print, self-publishing, and participatory workshops to explore cultural identity, memory, diaspora, and U.S.–Cuba relations. Centered on collaboration and pedagogy, she frames publishing as a political, relational act. She is Assistant Professor of Communication Design at Parsons and runs LoPress Press, collaborating with institutions and exhibiting, lecturing, and leading workshops internationally.
