Without any doubt Asian graphic always fascinated us and it helped us feeling the exquisiteness, worship, care of the images and the calligraphy carrying a cultural heritage. Thanks to a rented motorbike and as part of an adventurous investigation, we travelled to know in person some traditional niches of Vietnamese popular printing like the tranh dân gian làng Sình (Sình people's popular printing) in the commune of Phu Vang, Thua Thien, close to the town called Hue, with a tradition of more than 400 years of woodcut engravings. We also had the chance to learn a little in one of the laboratories of the village of Dông Hô, about 30 kilometres from Hanoi, which is possibly, without forgetting to name iconographies such as Hàng Trô´ng or Kim Hoàng, one of the oldest and renowned woodcut in Vietnam.

Here we share some of the photographs that we took in those Vietnamese graphic temples

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Since Don Hugo sold the tools of his laboratory/house in the middle of Bogotá, we have never heard of him again. In the Colombian capital, he is one of the few people who knows the craft of printing with mobile typography and he used to print an incredible amount of popular posters like those that still announce football tournaments in the neighbourhoods, church announcements or local bazaars.

Don Hugo now and then used to work for university students or for anybody with a passion for traditional printing. We remember him as a lively man who loved to take frequent rests for a "tintico" (in Colombian slang an "american coffee") in a plastic glass that he would find in street markets and itinerant shops. Thanks to Don Hugo we began to learn something more about printing techniques in precarious conditions, about a work which is well done but without spectacularization, about the work of a man who used to take a rest and wake up in the same place immersed in a petroleum smell.

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We have never heard of him again, but in honour of his influence and his memory, we decided to give our new project a name which is twinned to his old laboratory: "RELAMPAGO" ("FULMINE" in italian, "LIGHTNING" in english). A few months ago we found out that his laboratory was taken over by people that we really admire and we know that they are taking care of it; they kept the name "Relampago"; this name is too nice, why should they change it?

From another "Lightning" and from new channels that are not simply digital, we send our greetings to you and we wish you all the best, as we wish all the best to Don Hugo; anywhere he may be, we hope he's happy and in good health, enjoying his deserved retirement.

Don Hugo printing a poster of Erica Il Cane /2016. Right here below you can see more posters made with him in Bogotá↓.

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