“If we weren't doing it together, we wouldn't do it”: Em—Dash on kickstarting your practice

For designers and co-founders Saundra Liemantoro and Aarushi Matiyani, print has a life of its own. At their independent studio and press Em—Dash, they produce books and zines spanning art-practice, design, research and visual culture, often collaborating with artists and local institutions like Brixton Community Cinema.

Doing it as a duo has been vital, allowing them to push each other, bounce ideas off one another and pool together their skillsets. From embedding themselves in local creative community and following their interests, here’s how they started – and maintain – their print practice.

Saundra Liemantoro and Aarushi Matiyani, founders of Em—Dash

How did Em—Dash begin?

Saun: It was after uni (Covid graduates) and we were working hospitality jobs and sending out applications with no one replying, which was very demoralising. We’d been wanting to have a project together for some time, but it never really happened until we were like, let's make it happen to keep doing our practice after university. So whether it was Ru's work or my work, or any of our collaborations, it would be under Em—Dash.

Ru: I think we didn't really know what we were making or what we were starting out with. It was like, okay, we're feeling pretty shit about the industry, about ourselves, so let's just name something, and then in two weeks we have to be accountable to each other to make something small. Something that we can't really do on our own, so we have to be there for each other to make stuff.

Saun: Even just to push each other. We were starting out drawing illustrations and we also had an egg competition with our friend that turned into the first zine that we did – egg recipes from friends. We printed 30 on the uni printer and people bought them. It felt good also; with zine-making, the work finishes in the medium, but then it continues to have a life afterwards.

What does each of you bring to the partnership?

Ru: I think we end up doing everything together, but we have different backgrounds within design and making that we lean on each other for. For example, I don't know that much about image-making or photography or film, and Saundra is really good at that.

Saun: Ru is an amazing writer. I get stuck and Ru is like, “Okay, just start somewhere and then let's edit”. It makes it less daunting for me. I think Ru is very intuitive as well; she can anticipate what our clients are thinking in between the lines.

Ru: We end up just doing things in front of each other – it’s not exclusive – so that we're able to grow.

Saun: We trust each other, so it's really nice to show Ru something when I need a pair of fresh eyes. It's really just feeding off each other.

How would you describe your approach to bookmaking and binding and printing?

Saun: I think it’s really whatever we're interested in. Coming from design backgrounds where we love doing research and looking at visual culture, it's really fun first and then building things around it. Printed matter is everywhere and has a life of its own.

Ru: We both come from cultures that have a lot of maximalism. I grew up around a lot of print: on the plastic bag you buy at the shop, a flyer from the print shop, crazy looking banners. I think that seeps into our work. The everyday print stuff that inspires us prints really well on Riso because of the colours. It feels more exciting to design in a more full-on way; I think it's in opposition to stuff I do at my job or stuff we learned in uni about grids. It's nice to experiment, to scan and cut up stuff and just have a bit more fun with it.

Saun: And to play with our hands. A lot of the process is through experimentation; one of our workshops is printing and scanning and then layering things and seeing what can come up – that’s the creative journey. Not boxing ourselves in, like, “Oh, it needs to be perfect bound or it needs to have this kind of form.” That openness.

Ru: It's a lot of trial and error; it takes us a lot of versions of something before we're actually happy with the final thing. And then we go into the mindset of how do we make 100 of this; what is the most effective way in terms of time and money.

'Éditions Atlas', a publishing project sharing textual responses to cinema

Can you talk us through a project that represents your practice?

Saun: We started our own imprint last year called Practice Meets Paper, it is a growing series of publications that spotlights an artist’s work and translates it into print.

Ru: We published a work last year called Are You Comfortable Yet, which features work by Anahita Harding, a performance artist whose work is a lot about her disability and how people perceive her.

Saun: It felt more like a collaboration, which we were super grateful to Anahita for.

Why are workshops and collective making important to you?

Saun: Opening up access, and also because it's fun! We're sharing the way we make things and putting it into the hands of people from different backgrounds, even non-art backgrounds. Everyone can make art, they’ve just got to learn how.

Ru: They just need that one push into making something. That's the hardest part, even for me; if we weren't doing it together, we wouldn't do it. Workshops really help with that. Also, if I look back, the highlights of each year have been the workshops. You just meet a lot of people.

Saun: It’s very fulfilling, and there's a certain energy on the day. Everyone's locked in.

Ru: I really like the time frame of it because you come with nothing and you leave with something. That's just a really good feeling.

How have community and South East London shaped your work?

Saun: We've lived in South East London for almost eight years. We went to uni here and there's a lot of really cool grassroots zine makers and book makers here, like Books Peckham, which was probably the first one we encountered.

Ru: It was kind of life-changing because they have great cheap secondhand books, and lots of new zines coming in every time we visit.

Saun: We slowly built up a network of people that we admired and learned from. Now we share studios with our friends, and are working to start a coop called 'Bookworkers & Beyond', with BOOKS, F.A.T. Studio, Sticky Fingers Publishing, PageMasters, Design Print Bind, Tommy Brentall, Lily McCraith and Esther McManus.

Ru: There are these creative pockets, like Avalon Cafe, Montez or Piehouse Coop. There's just a lot of possibility. We’re part of a community that is practising things and making stuff. It's important to work within the community, so we're always thinking about how we can open access to things or just make sure that people around us can always come chat to us and print whatever they need to.

Programme notes for Brixton Community Cinema

What have been the biggest challenges and lessons?

Ru: Saying no to things.

Saun: Especially as we were growing, everything felt exciting. So learning to say no and also knowing what kind of jobs are right for us. There's the risk of losing sight of why we're doing this with saying yes to everything.

Ru: I think because we often work with people close to us or within certain communities, it's a double thing of, we're probably not getting paid enough, but also the work is maybe not good enough if we take too much on. We're still figuring out pricing ourselves and pricing our work.

Saun: Whenever there's a brief that comes to us, it’s a puzzle for us: how we can make the budget and are we stretching ourselves at the end of the day? Yeah, we can do it, but can we actually do it viably?

What advice would you give someone starting a collaborative practice like yourselves?

Saun: Just start. I found a free inkjet printer and scanner for free on Gumtree and picked it up, full of cat hair. There’s a lot you can do with just a printer and scanner.

Ru: Do it with someone or keep yourself open to talking about your work with others. Don't be afraid of feedback. I've met people who aren't comfortable showing something that isn't ready yet; I think that just stops you really. It's like a mental block and it's a lot of stress to put on yourself. It gets easier when you show somebody.

Saun: I think there are a lot of initiatives in London that are trying to make things open access, with pay-what-you-can pricing models; there are lots of workshops going round. I think reach out to people, make yourself available for these things, go to fairs.

What's next for Em—Dash?

Saun: We have some things coming up. We have PageMasters Zine Fair the last weekend of August and Materials Festival in September. We're going to make a new Memepage. Then we're working on a new thing called Rough Notes, which is an attempt to have momentum. It’s kind of a work in progress around research on visual culture, arts and design.

Ru: In September we are doing a double-bill screening for the last and final season of Brixton Community Cinema called When the Stars Meet the Ocean.

Saun: We're going to make chai and have some snacks, it's going to be a good time. We hope to do more curation work and exhibitions this year, also always looking for partners who are interested in our workshops!