handmade paper (mitsumata, kozo), sumi, stone, repurposed Japanese papermaking frames
size variable
site-specific installation at the historic Echizen Washi Cooperative, Echizen, Japan
This is a storybook told through drawings framed with papermaking tools. It has no single direction, and was arranged in a circular, clock-like fashion.
This is the building that once housed the Echizen Washi Cooperative, before the newer, more modern structure was built down the road. To this day, it is used for storage and sometimes as a front-facing event space during the festival to the papermaking goddess. When I stumbled into this space, I found numerous keta papermaking frames — objects containing an immense history of use and utility. I repurposed these tools to create frames for this narrative.
In Japan, there is an ongoing trend of people moving away from villages to urban areas for work. Additionally, throughout my own life, I have lived in numerous places, having lived in five different US states before 18, and being uprooted at critical moments in my life. With this installation, I sought to merge my personal narrative with the narrative of this village, and other villages — a loss of people, a dwindling of home, a demolition of physical structure. But more hopefully, the narrative can be read the other way, too: from pitch darkness to the gradual peeling back of layers to reveal a home, with a strong foundation. This is why I placed these drawings in a circular installation.
