Exhibition Walkthrough
A 4 minute video walking through the exhibition of Gathering Pages on Feb 14-16 at Cambridge Artworks.
This is a video description along with some still images from the exhibition.
To the left of the entrance is a plinth with some text describing the exhibition on the front and a stack of exhibition guides on top for folks to take.
The exhibition guide contains a little map of the space and a description of each of the installations on the cover. It is folded in half, and the inside lists an image of each piece included in the Gathering Pages books, along with the artist credit. The back of the flyer has images of the other artwork in the show, a series of lino prints and a series of monoprints.
The artist statement reads:
This summer, I was lucky to be selected for a residency in the Artworks Caravan. During the 3 weeks I was here, I made paper from stinging nettles I foraged on Midsummer Common. I invited folks to select a sheet of nettle paper and to use it to record their thoughts in words, pictures, or abstraction, thinking broadly about paper and our relationship to it. I have bound the contributions together into a book, Gathering Pages. Due to the popularity of this project, the book was quickly followed by a second volume.
My heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed their creativity, time and effort.
Nettle paper is gorgeous, but its beauty is not in a crisp, white rectangle. The final unbleached pages retain some of the natural green colour and fibrous quality of the nettles. Each non-conformist sheet has its own personality, without perfectly square corners or straight edges. These deviations are worth celebrating, and are far more interesting than a ream of uniform white rectangles.
This project starts with making paper, but is deeply an interrogation of capitalism’s resource hunger and drive to devalue life. Sharing the pages and asking people to create art with them is microcosm of the urgent, anti-authoritarian response needed to reclaim our humanity from a political and economic system that will devour everything.
The series “Black windows, White bombs” continues this theme specifically focusing on anti-colonial and anti-racist ideas. I repeatedly use an arched shape to evoke windows and bombs. This imagery calls out the mindset that other people simply existing is cause for violence against them, and denounces the reprehensible idea of finding safety in persecuting others.
The exhibition concludes with a table of my pamphlets and propaganda that encourages you to make your own paper, metaphorical or not.
Beside the plinth with the guides is a larger plinth with the two Gathering Pages volumes on it. On the wall behind is a projector showing a slideshow of all the pages in the two volumes, and a one minute video of the paper making process on repeat.
Beside the projected videos, a small A6 sized sketchbook made from nettle paper is standing on a small book stand which is attached to the wall. A chamois cloth that I use to wrap the book to protect it is draped over the stand at the base of the book.
On the wall to the right of the sketchbook is a series of three linocuts that show different images of the nettle plant, printed onto nettle paper. Below the prints on the wall is a long plinth holding the remainder of the prints in the editions, and also the same print on card instead of nettle paper.
Turning around, in the middle of the room is a low plinth that contains process work and two mould and deckles that I used to make the paper with.
Farther along the wall that had the lino prints is a series of monoprints called “Black Windows, White Bombs”.
On the wall to the right of the monoprints is a table containing a small book I wrote and printed called “Making Paper from Stinging Nettles”. The cover was beautiully riso printed by Earthbound Press, and the book contains everything I know about making nettle paper. Order a copy here.
I also offered pre orders of next years nettle paper.
Lastly, two zines I published were available that are thematically related to the exhibition, “How to talk about Neoliberalism with your friends and colleagues (and what to do about it)" and “Why I wear a mask”. Their contents are available online through the links.
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