no coming, no going, 2022
installation and events (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. All participants wrote three things they felt while handling the pulp and making the paper by hand; these impressions were recorded on a notepad.
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.
On the final day of the installation, participants were invited to 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 carbonate and magnesium carbonate. 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!