cleveland print room demo videos

Below are three demo videos of alternative photography processes: Cyanotype, Lumen Prints, and Pinhole Photography.

 The Suitcase Project

A note from Shari Wilkins, Founder & Strategic Director-

Back in the Fall of 2019, I happened upon an article in the Los Angeles Times about an exhibition in Los Angeles called El Sueño Americano | The American Dream: Photographs by Tom Kiefer. In this photographic series, Kiefer asks us to consider how we treat migrants as a reflection of who we are and who we want to be as Americans. In his work, which is a response to the dehumanizing treatment migrants face in detention, he carefully arranges and photographs objects seized and discarded by border officials—objects deemed “potentially lethal” or “non-essential” among a variety of belongings crucial for sustenance, hygiene, protection, comfort, and emotional strength. I called Tom Kiefer immediately and booked the exhibition at the Cleveland Print Room in 2020.

In January 2021, my sister, artist and writer Nicki Wilkins, and I created The Suitcase Project in response to and inspired by Tom Kiefer’s moving exhibition. The Suitcase Project focuses on the items contained in immigrants’ and migrants’ suitcases as an examination of the cultural and social landscape of our city: Cleveland. In the 2010s, the immigrant population of Cleveland began to see significant growth, becoming one of the fastest growing centers for immigration in the Great Lakes region. As immigration is an important aspect of American history as well as contemporary American life, the Suitcase Project considers the cultural, social, and historical aspects of immigration through art and the written word.

Through the lens of immigration and migration, this project examines the condensed universe of the luggage, along with replicating presentation and engagement on the topic of immigration. The Suitcase Project recasts the narrative of immigrants in Cleveland communities using their own voice and vision. We asked participants to create an innovative project that considers the content of the luggage as a study in cultural self-portraiture. 

Through an open call, nine participants from immigrant families (up to two generations removed) were chosen to create suitcases of meaningful artifacts from their home countries and new artwork as part of a traveling exhibition. The exhibition spent four weeks here at the Cleveland Print Room, and is now at Akron Soul Train’s gallery, opening June 11 & 12 from 11am to 7pm, on view until July 3. The exhibition can be seen worldwide as it will also be featured on our website in a virtual exhibition for the duration of both physical exhibitions.

Rebecca Abramovich

семья (family)

Hello, my name is Rebecca Abramovich. I am a 10th grade high school student living in Cleveland Ohio. I am an American who is part Jewish and Ukrainian. I speak Russian and English. I love art, drawing, painting, photography, and creative writing.

My family is my inspiration. I want to tell their stories to the world. I find them interesting, others will also.

For this project, I wrote stories I have heard from both sides of my family about their experiences in Ukraine/Russia. I wrote about some of their stories and turned them into poems. I also took photos of things they have from Russia/Ukraine that they either brought with them or were shipped later. Also, I did some photo restorations and made a painting.

Mallorie Freeman

Off the Record

My Mother, Merlyn, and Grandmother, Fe McCollum, immigrated from the Philippines to the US when Merlyn, was barely one year old. However, it wasn’t until she applied for a passport at age forty that my Mom discovered she was an undocumented citizen. With two teen-aged daughters, thankfully she was able to gain US citizenship and avoid deportation. From my perspective, this moment was only the beginning of the journey into her past.

Merlyn was a singer who was noticed by a record executive’s daughter at a high school talent show. At only sixteen years old, she was invited to NYC to audition for ABC Paramount and immediately signed a contract under the name Mer-Lyn. A national tour followed to promote her debut record, Promise. She made appearances on the Shindig! National Tour, Ed Hurst’s Steel Pier Show, American Bandstand, the Johnny Carson Show, and frequently sang at the 500 Club in Atlantic City. Mer-Lyn retired from her singing career at age 23 to start a family in Cleveland, Ohio. Shortly after, the 500 Club burned down along with many of her belongings. She rarely spoke of the memories of her singing days on the Atlantic City Boardwalk during the 1960’s. Like a detective searching for clues, the mystery unfolds and presents itself though objects, music, newspaper articles, and photographs. This is the untold story of Mer-Lyn’s past-life as seen through the lens of her daughter, Mallorie Freeman.

Clarissa Jakobsons

The Last Stronghold

Let me share our histories and how I came to Ohio.

My parents fled their homeland, Lithuania, because the Communists were soon to invade. In Germany, my Mother was sent to a munitions labor camp, although she was born in Philadelphia. My Father was sent to a northern mining town labor camp. He survived ten-line-ups with machine guns targeting his head and heart, asking two questions: Name: Pranas Mickevicius and Occupation: physician. 

Father visited Poland to find safe passage out of Europe, but the Nazis captured and deported him to several Polish prison camps. When under the Yalta Conference, Russia was granted free labor, Father was rail-roaded in a cattle car to the Stalingrad Gulag. After several years, he was released without a reason.

I was born in Hildesheim in 1944. In Germany, the landlady stole my baby milk, and Mother finally decided to join her Chicago sisters. At that time sponsors were required, even though mother was born in Philly. She carried this maroon leather purse on the ship from Hamburg to Ellis Island, while I caressed my book, Der Struwwelpeter. Der Struwwelpeter book includes various illustrated, short stories of children demonstrating why you must obey. Kasper would not eat his soup, eventually he died and was buried! Another page displays a girl playing with matches, her body flamed, her ashes remain! It’s really a frightening, scary book for kids. Why I cherished it remains a mystery. But, I always finished my soup, even today!

Luckily, after Father’s release from the gulag, he met a doctor in Berlin who knew our current address. Meanwhile, in Chicago, Mother earned $10/day as a sales clerk at Joe’s Dry Goods Store to save for Father’s passage home. He worked in various hospitals while studying for the Illinois Medical Board Exams, but wasn’t aware one must bribe examiners, who had quotas for each country.

As a German-speaking immigrant, I was continually harassed by nuns and classmates. The black star still rests on my forehead. Father passed Missouri State Board Exams, and we moved. When he passed Ohio Board exams, we moved to Solon since more Lithuanians lived nearby. I attended Hoban-Dominican High School and belonged to the Grandinėlė dance group. My costume and wooden shoes were handmade in Lithuania, just for me. Eventually history books changed, and I realized my parents’ version of our past was correct. Graduating from K.S.U. with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, I lived sandwiched between worlds.

My Latvian husband settled in Kent, then Aurora, while I taught middle school art. I’ve taught various adult courses at Cuyahoga Community College over the past 14 years. Today, I’m in the process of writing a manuscript of poems titled, The Last Stronghold.

The Last Stronghold poetry book combines my own history during WW II and how I felt growing up in the States. My PTS body still jerks unexpectedly at fireworks or startling noise. These bones remember U.S. and British bombs exploding in Germany. In school, I never really discussed my past, they knew I was born in Germany and assumed I was a Nazi. I started researching into Lithuanian traditions which showed a love of the gnarled oak tree. Sometimes I belong to numerous European roots. Other times, I belong here or feel like I do not belong to any country.

My oak tree roots are prolific, spreading through continents. Thank you for reading- let’s not forget the past.

Sabine Kretzschmar

Beyond 24

I can’t prove it, but I think that the large number of things that followed my parents Atlantic crossing is atypical for first-generation Americans. My path of self-discovery—where and who I come from—is drawn by those objects and ephemera now under my care.

I never had family or friends to tell me stories of when my parents were young, or that famous uncle, or those troublemaking cousins. Instead, I have been researching these objects to find connection to the extended family and ancestors that I never knew. Along the way, they “why” to parts of my own origin story have been revealed. I am a loner museum professional and art historian who learns about the world through objects. I am a keeper.

My mother, father, brother, and sister immigrated to the United States in December of 1952 aboard the S.S. United States. In 1955, my maternal Grandmother followed them. She showed up at their door, with 24 wooden crates (as the story goes) containing the family’s household goods, passed down through generations, including monogramed linens and silver, fine china, jewelry, and art.

My parent’s decision to immigrate was in part to escape post-war Germany. But they also spoke of the freedom and better life for their children that they hoped for in the U.S. That immigrant cliché was real.

They chose the U.S. because of their good relationships with US military occupying troops and the country’s need for doctors was greater than their dislike of Germans. Once here, life was much harder than they anticipated. A couple of years after their arrival, my father was drafted into the U.S. Navy, and we moved every few years. People were not very welcoming to foreigners, especially Germans. They made a home not with walls but the things we had. Seeing them hung, placed, and used in each new space provided the little continuity we had.

It is less clear to me why my Grandmother came to the U.S., especially at the age of 74. She came from a well-to-do family that earned its’ fortune from the family business, fine-arts book publishing. She grew up and her early years of marriage were in a world that included formal balls, servants to run the household, and a house full of artists and intellectuals. She then experienced the great war, the problematic Weimar Republic, the devastating Nazi regime, the death of three children and her husband, and WWII. She lost her fortune and way of life. All that remained were the things. Why she came and brought them here, I’ll never really know.

It is important to note that while the things carry the stories, rootedness, traditions, traumas, and burdens of the past, my parents came to this country with so much more. They were brave and optimistic. They carried their hopes, and dreams. Both were artists. My mother painted and my father played the piano. Throughout my life, they did both daily. They were adventurers, travelers, and reveled in the freedom to come and go as they pleased, without the restrictions that permeated their youth. They were creative and intellectual explorers and passed that down to me.

I stand on these objects as the foundation of who I am. I look forward to learning the lessons they have to teach and moving forward through them. I will use them, de-power them, and hopefully lighten my load and leave them behind. Or at least to the side.

Nicole Ledinek

Who Made You? (you made me)

It is late afternoon and the sun coming through the window is warm and soft. I’m at ease, with my arm resting on a wood laminate table while sitting comfortably in a tan vinyl and chrome chair. She is standing, facing me, only a pink countertop stove between us. Absorbed with preparing supper, our conversation, led by me, is sparse and her silence, though usual, is intimidating. Curiosity guides me and helps to neutralize my fear of asking her anything personal. I begin with questions about the food and after a while I’m hearing stories about relatives I didn’t even know existed before today. Countless conversations had emerged between us in that kitchen before and after that day. What makes this 17 year old memory stand out from the others is that it contains a story I was asked to never repeat.

My contribution to The Suitcase Project is one part of an ongoing pursuit to know and make sense of family stories that are (or are not) repeated across generations. I have been asking questions, listening at family parties, and thinking about the larger story that they tell for most of my life. Several years ago, ignited by some professional training, I began to examine how these stories have informed who I am today. I feel that if I can increase my self-awareness, maybe I can better interrupt unhelpful behaviours or amplify more constructive traits.

When I began in early 2021, my intention was to unpack how my relatives’ decision to immigrate and assimilate shaped my identity and interest in heritage. To do this I knew I needed to interview relatives and nervously sent out handwritten invitations. Some ignored the invitation, others were suspicious, and a few were excited to share stories about their lives. I scheduled time to connect and sent my questions in advance. Collecting facts and figures wasn’t my aim. I wanted for each person to share which family members or experiences they felt influenced them and how. Who made them?

Even after many hours of detailed planning, I couldn’t have prepared myself for how emotionally complex it was to take part in this process. Though I am practiced at leading conversations, I am new to being the bearer of family stories and secrets, and very new to processing how these stories and secrets made me me. Collecting and sharing experiences in the familiar form of a book seemed obvious at first, but I soon realized I left my story out. Who Made You? (you made me) brings together those pieces of the interviews that allow me to better understand myself and my family as a whole. Each page contains multiple voices that are grouped by a common idea or message and are intentionally without attribution. It is the message of the story rather than the person sharing it that I feel is important. How my family made sense of their experiences, in part, made me. 

I have never repeated the story she shared with me that day in the kitchen. As a result of this project I see how what happened and more importantly, how she felt about it, in part created the difficult and notoriously silent person we knew. Her choice to be silent doesn’t need to be ours and why I continue the practice of listening to, reflecting on, and sharing family stories.

YunJung Lee

How did I arrive in the USA? I've a personal story to share. I'm originally from South Korea and grew up in the lively city of Seoul. I actually never imagined myself living abroad as a teenager. But when I came of age at 20, my mother claimed after seeing a local fortune teller, that I'd be living overseas and learning foreign languages for life. I completely denied this at that time as I believed it to be merely superstition. Time passed. I graduated from college and pursued my dream to work as an artist in my 20s. Nervously, I packed up a suitcase and I went overseas to Australia for the first time. It was an eye-opening experience. I learnt English and many new things, then I went back to my country to continue working there. When I turned 30, to commemorate, I decided to go to Europe to seek new inspirations as a gift to myself. So I went to France with the assumption that I'd be back in a couple of months.. But I met the love of my life there unexpectedly. He led me to a new stage of life. Before our wedding, my mother handed me a handwritten card with the words: "Finally two birds have found each other and made a nest. Feed each other full with love and care, and be happy." I have kept her precious words by me. I unpacked my suitcase. We settled down in France. I continued to seek inspiration, and work on my art while learning French. Then my husband received the opportunity to work in the USA. As a pair of lovebirds, we flew over. And now, I realized, superstition or not, the fortune teller had been right. My life has been filled with inspirational suitcases.

'Suitcase' as a theme has made me think deeply. It made me think of who I am and where I am, as an individual outside of my home country. It provoked within me an urge to delve deeper into about what is my identity and my emotions about how I feel living as an immigrant, which I previously haven't explored.

Since taking on the project, every morning, I would take a moment to think about my past, present and future. Looking at the drafts of various 'Suitcase' ideas and experiences before me that I've sketched out and drew, or stuck together to a cheerful colorful collage of, I would have mixed and complicated feelings.

I would feel again sadness about many past partings with loved ones. Nostalgia would hit alongside flaring homesickness and floating loneliness arising from barriers. I would calm myself and look at where I am after my past travels to better understand myself. I found acknowledgement of my previous and current happiness and joy would arise within me and lift my mood. A tingle of excitement for next journey would run through me as I look beyond now and into the future. I am a traveller inspired by the spirit of adventure! I would feel powerful and enabled; strong enough to overcome language barriers and the difficulties in navigating different cultures. From my homeland, I would find a new home in a different land and go past borders with my individual suitcase packed with experience and hope.

My goal is to playfully invite viewers to view my naive past and present travels and recall perhaps their own experiences and emotions they felt as fresh world travellers with their own individual suitcases. Through sharing, I hope to help others understand what it feels like to be immigrant.

Andrew Aaron Valdez

Maletas Lindas

"Maletas Lindas", or “Happy Suitcases”, is inspired by El Sueno Americano by Tom Kiefer and features the brothers created in Casitas Lindas, highlighting the things they may have brought with them in their search of a new home. When interacting with Maletas Lindas you’ll notice that there are items that have been fully piñata-fied and others that are gradually in transformation. This gradual and messy transformation is a commentary on the gradual assimilation immigrants must make to dawn a more Americanized identity. Valdez’s choice of items aren’t what would considered "the best" items for two travelers to bring but rather a reflection of what was available to two immigrants and what held the most sentimental meaning. The items’ gradual assimilation seen through piñata-fication is most apparent when viewing the suitcase, as the bottom portion is fully immersed in a green, white and red pattern (Mexico) as the top is adorned with a partial red, white and blue pattern. The piñata-fication was achieved by mixing a proportional amount of flour, water, oil and carefully attaching newspaper to the different material surfaces, accounting for the durability of each surface. The inner lining of the suitcase is made up of a road map outlining the journey of our two brothers. When interacting with Maletas Lindas the artist poses the question to the viewer, what would you bring with you if you moved to a different country and what or who would you be willing to leave behind?

"Maletas Lindas" is an extension of Andrew Aaron Valdez's "Casitas Lindas" project. Casitas Lindas is an installation art piece by poet and theatre artist Andrew Aaron Valdez. Valdez, a Texas native, drew inspiration from Dallas Native Giovanni Valderas’s guerilla outdoor project Casita Triste (Sad Little House). Valdera’s project looked to create awareness, reflection, and empathy by provoking discussion around affordable housing issues and displacement in the Oak Cliff area of Dallas, TX. 

Casitas Lindas serves as a response to the Casita Triste project, a wayward symbol of welcoming and embracement of the Latinx folks who have found themselves being displaced. Casitas Lindas was commissioned as a part of the Julia de Burgos Cultural Arts Center Support for Artist Grant. 

Gina Washington

Entitled: Tethered

He walked gently. As if not to disturb the clouds. Unconditional love could have been his name, so much so that 4-legged creatures could find refuge in his presence.

Tethered, he was, to his soulmate.

She must have been savvy, aware of her power. Her gifts were used for good. Unmeasured, she created magic that melted in your mouth and made time standstill.

Tethered, she was, to her family.

Together, raising more than their own, they stepped into history unnamed and unaware of the magic they shared.

Tethered, they were, to a life unyielding and filled with love.

My grandmother's family is well documented. I know that I am the 6th generation in the Hewlett family line. If it were not for the desires of a master towards his barely human property, I would not be here. If it were not for the humanity of Black folks, none of us would be here.

America is tethered to the idea of "manifest destiny."

Migrating from the south to the north just changed how racism is displayed. Therefore this is not a story about the search for "The American Dream." The American Dream never existed for Black Indigenous People of Color. It was dangled in front of us like a carrot. The very basic need to matter exists in the hearts of my folk. If Black folks don't matter, nothing else matters. If we cannot be seen with compassion or empathy, nothing else matters.

I am a Child of the Universe. I am not a Queen or of the "Chosen Ones." Hierarchy has no place here; it simply creates "Us vs. Them," more oppression. I am not tethered to a particular place nor the idea of America. I am tethered to the joy my ancestors felt when they held their children. It must have felt like hope.

A brief history of James and Mattie Williams

James saw Mattie for the first time when he escaped a baseball game that had broken up over a fight. He hopped on the back of a bumper and saw her through the window. He was 7 or 8-years old, born in 1914.

James and Mattie were married in 1939. Their children were born before that. Both sides of the family came up North to Cleveland. James worked at Footburt Reynolds Metals Company, Mattie was a chef for well-to-do white families.

They purchased their home in the '70s and became the second owner. James and Mattie hosted their families in that home. My mother graduated from Ursuline, their nephews went to Benedictine and beyond.

In 2008 the home was valued at $38,000. The value now is $14,700. Paid in full, then re-mortgaged, now underwater. Both are deceased. The majority of the 7th generation of our family has returned to the South.

Anonymous Middle Eastern-American, resident of Ohio

Dear finder of my suitcase,

If you can smell the laurel, then you must be reading my letter. My name shall remain anonymous, but I can be who you want me to be, because we will never meet, except in your ethereal imagination. I am from a bedeviled slab of earth, plagued with a complicated war that erupted as a reflex reaction to us, the common people, protesting against the government and demanding basic human freedoms. With a government infamous for detaining those who oppose it, the all seeing eyes of the secret service haunted me until I disappeared into their parallel universe, along with thousands of forgotten faces and names.

There were tens of us, crumbled into a small square room built for half our number. The smell of mold, human excrement and severed futures was suffocating. Torture was a sadistic ritual, and if you met the cigarette burns on my body, my missing fingernails and my plucked beard they will recite to you the most chilling stories of human suffering and torture. My silence often wrestled my screeching anger, and my death always loomed around in anticipation. Six years felt like decaying centuries, but I was miraculously set free, alive but lifeless, for reasons I never knew.

It is customary that whoever is being released delivers spoken messages to the family members of those still inside or those who have died under torture. I suddenly became both a holy messenger and a courier of death, but I was the only hope of these families ever receiving any information about their loved ones. Before my detainment, I was forced into poverty and became a street vendor selling laurel soap, my city’s most famous and ancient trades that still survives, unlike the citizens of this country. I started delivering the messages, carved on the bars of soap. Maybe my voice was too defeated to speak them, or maybe I was too ashamed that I was given another life, or was I?

Sadly, my mission was short-lived and word swiftly buzzed around the checkpoints about my sly deliveries. In a whirlwind, I had to leave my country with the suitcase burdened with twelve remaining undelivered messages, but it was destined to be abandoned along the way as I had to cross a sea, a river, a mountain and forests to reach a new home.

Dear finder of my suitcase, I hope you read Arabic or can find someone who does. Translate our anguish and let the world inhale our laurel.

waterways to waterways

As part of the lead up to the 50th anniversary of the Cuyahoga River catching fire on June 22, 1969, the Cleveland Foundation’s Creative Fusion: Waterways to Waterways Edition will bring together a group of international and local artists to focus on projects that connect the regenerative efforts for the Cuyahoga to global waterways. Below are examples of how the Cleveland Print Room is getting involved.

crooked river - an exhibition by michael tsegaye

Ethiopian photographer and photojournalist Micheal Tsegaye is the Cleveland Print Room’s Creative Fusion International Artist-In-Residence for this project. Tsegaye will transform the Cleveland Print Room Gallery into the Cuyahoga River and its crooked bends from aerial photos and photographs from the riverbed. Crooked River opens Friday, June 21 at the Cleveland Print Room from 5-9pm, and will be on display until August 3.

Event link here.

Bridged - an exhibition by Sophie Schwartz

Schwartz' project will use the notion of a bridge to lead her exploration of the Cuyahoga River. As she juxtaposes her photographic survey of existing structures and those who use them, with archival images of bridges on the river, she melds and recontextualizes of the past and present to inform a larger historical perspective. Her exhibition will open at the River View Welcome Center Saturday, June 22, from 2-6 pm. Join the Cleveland Museum of Art’s Studio Go and make cyanotypes.

Event link here.

River Water soup

CPR’s Teen Institute In Transformation students will undertake a project in which they capture the traces of the overlooked and unseen along the Cuyahoga River. Using the alternative photographic cyanotype process, the students will create organic and conceptual results. By creating cyanotypes with water from the Cuyahoga River, it further adds to the mystery of the final outcome. Students will create a book that documents the experimental results.

See student work on display during Michael Tsegaye’s Crooked River Opening Friday, June 21 from 5-9pm.

Sacred river walk

The Cleveland Print Room, through the Cleveland Foundations’s Creative Fusion, is hosting a river walk along the Cuyahoga River led by Ojibwe elder, Sharon Day. The water walk will begin at the Cuyahoga’s headwaters and end four days later, in a process in which Day leads a group that carries sacred river water to the mouth of the Cuyahoga where it is emptied into Lake Erie. If you are interested in joining the walk, watch for community meetings around town or email info@clevelandprintroom.com. The walk will take place June 17 - 20. For questions, call Sally Winter at 440-666-5724.

For more information on Cleveland’s historical river fire and other current events, visit Cuyahoga 50 through the logo above.