New York Print Center - New Voices: Design
Exhibition, June 11–August 22, 2026
New Voices: Design, the fourth iteration of Print Center New York’s annual open call program, showcases work by the 2026 artist cohort: Noah Breuer, Zoran Dobric, Johannah Herr, Jazzmen Lee-Johnson, Michael Menchaca, Melih Meriç, Anette Millington and Amy Yoes. New Voices: Design examines the historical legacy and contemporary application of pattern across a wide range of printmaking practices. It is curated by Andrew Raftery, Professor of Printmaking at Rhode Island School of Design, who was invited to lead this year’s New Voices selection process. Using design as a guiding framework, Raftery engaged with approximately 400 applications from across the United States in order to arrive at the final cohort of eight artists. These artists are united by their shared engagement with the history of pattern and its reverberations in the present through design, printmaking, and culture.
The practice-based research project Crochet Chronicles explores the refugee experience and healing through artwear, drawing on Dobric’s experience fleeing the war in the former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. The garment expresses memories of his lost home through the motif of his grandmother’s hand-crocheted doily, an heirloom commonly carried by Eastern and Central European refugees and immigrants.
Dobric screen-printed an enlarged doily motif onto a gold emergency blanket; a material associated with refugees fleeing their homes. The blanket also recalls his childhood memories of Byzantine, Baroque, and Secession gilding. The dress is further embellished with hand-sculpted, gold-painted clay pieces set within black cording, referencing Byzantine mosaics. The gold and mournful black palette symbolize memory, loss, mourning, contemplation, and healing.
Through autoethnography, Crochet Chronicles recounts stories of displacement, loss, and hope while demonstrating how fashion can foreground marginalized voices and foster empathy through storytelling. Ultimately, despite experiences of war and grief, the work communicates a utopian vision of unity and peace, using fashion to encourage greater empathy and hope for a more peaceful future.
