Paper Is People: Decolonizing Global Paper Cultures

Viewed together, the works on display seek to open a conversation around what paper is across cultures today: a vessel for collective memory, a body, a site of meaning, a living ancestor, and a form of cultural survival and resistance. To appreciate global paper cultures in a decolonial context, it is important to consider definitions of paper that move beyond those created and sanctioned by imperial powers. In the Indigenous and oral cultures represented here, baskets, tapestries, and other handmade substrates act as vessels and embodiments of culture and memory. Some even hold status as animate members of their community. Among peoples subjugated under slavery and denied access to literacy and the requisite tools for creating paper and books, maintaining and building upon their threatened cultural knowledge required creativity like those exhibited in African American quilts. Paper Is People presents each cultural substrate as a new definition within contextualized multimedia displays that invite thoughtful participation and engagement of the senses.

Exhibiting artists: Alisa Banks  :: Hannah Chalew :: Page Pūko‘a Chang  :: Julio Laja Chichicaxtle :: Kelly Church :: Hong Hong :: Chenta Laury :: Aimee Lee :: Radha Pandey :: Veronica Pham :: Trina Michelle Robinson :: Steph Rue :: Seringô Collective :: rhiannon skye tafoya

About the curators:

Proprietor of Primrose Press, Tia Blassingame is a book artist and printmaker exploring the intersection of race, history, and perception. Utilizing printmaking and book arts techniques, she renders racially-charged images and histories for a nuanced discussion on issues of race and racism. She has been a teaching artist at the National Building Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Glen Echo, Pyramid Atlantic, and University of Maryland at College Park. She has been an artist-in-residence at Yaddo, Santa Fe Art Institute (SFAI), the Andy Warhol Preserve, the International Print Center New York (IPCNY), and MacDowell Colony. Her artist's books and prints can be found in library and museum collections around the world including Library of Congress, Yale University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Tate Britain, and State Library of Queensland.

Stephanie Sauer is a writer, interdisciplinary artist, and publisher. Her publications include Almonds Are Members of the Peach Family (Noemi Press) and The Accidental Archives of the Royal Chicano Air Force (University of Texas Press).

Paper Is People: Decolonizing Global Paper Cultures originated at and was organized by the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. It was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Craft Research Fund grant from the Center for Craft, and a Zellerbach Family Foundation grant.