no coming, no going, 2022
installation and event (scroll down for more info)
During three separate public paper pull sessions, artist and papermaker Nicholas Cladis invited participants to Public Space One in Iowa City, where each person made a single sheet of paper. These sheets of paper were placed on the walls of PS1's Northside gallery space in the order in which they were made, generating a site-specific, contemplative installation. For each sheet of paper, Cladis added soot-dyed pulp to the slurry little by little, thereby creating a progression in the gallery space: cream-colored paper transitioning to increasingly smoke-like grays and blacks, a reference to Thich Nhat Hanh's mention of burning paper in his sermon, The Universe in a Sheet of Paper.
Cladis shot a video of each of the participants’ hands mixing the papermaking slurry, and compiled those short videos, interspersing them with Thich Nhat Hanh's sermon. The video was shown at the closing event for the exhibition (scroll down below to view this video). After viewers watched the video, they were invited to participate in a "paper burn," wherein each sheet of paper was burned in a communal fire. The ash was later scattered throughout PS1's Northside art gardens, with the hope that it would provide a little boost to a few garden beds of struggling zinnias. The paper was burned with oak and beech, and the paper pulp itself contained deposits of calcium and magnesium. Fast forward: the zinnia plots thrived!
Thank you Hannah, John, Heidi, Devon, Dave, Lauren, Lilah, Kalmia, David, Lizzie, Allison, Tillie, Ezra, Stella, Graham, Harper, Bree, Al-Qawi, Johanna, Sally, Olivia, Adam, Jordan, Jennifer, Kelly, Amber, Dana, Clara, Isaac, Kaylee, Matt, Frances, Jonathan, Jess, Astrid, Ian, Pena Lynn, Cory, Emarie, Marty, Tsuyoshi, Atsuko, Emily, Jacob, Lydia, and Julie!
All participants wrote three things they felt while handling the pulp and making the paper by hand; these impressions were recorded on a notepad.
Creative Commons Note:
The video of Thich Nhat Hanh's sermon comes from TheMindOrchestra on YouTube, uploaded with a Creative Commons Attribution license (reuse allowed). My video contains edited fragments of the original video interspersed with my own videos (of paper pull participants' hands). Original video link: https://youtu.be/XyAOzp_aJqc