Stephanie Hadad
The Archive
I am making a mass
amounts of small sculptures out of archival paper. The idea is to raise
recognition of paper culture. I began this process using the cotton paper for
blank books. In the process I realized how unidentifiable our society has
become with books. Libraries are becoming scarce and book stores are going out
of business. Before we know it, a museum archive will be the only place
available to shuffle through books. Bookmaking is as old as time. Papyros which is Ancient Greek
for paper was made using papyrus plant used by Greeks, Romans and Egyptians. A
more advanced invention derived from the Chinese culture using tags and others
plants to archive official documents.
My project began with
the use blank archival paper. I began my experimentation with slip casting. Throughout
my research I came across cuneiform tablets. These tablets were usually left
unfired for reuse. Alternatively, I put more then half (about 100 2.5x10”) of
the slip casted sheets in the kiln which ended made the material turn to ash
and take form of the page. Unfortunately, most of the fired sheets shattered to
pieces and left dust behind. Like the reuse of the tablets I have slip casted a
couple hundred more sheets, leaving them unfired. I then experimented with new
archival sheets of paper, emerging them in boiling wax. I have decided to
display all these many sheets of paper on wooden dowels hung by clear string.
The installation is displayed as a form of archive.
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