How does paper making connect a person to the land? Last month, artists Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien delivered a paper making workshop in the Rumpus Room yard. Their exhibition ‘Offerings for Escalante’ is currently on show at the GoMA and was part of the GI Festival. The exhibition looks into their long-term research on the Filipino island of Negros and focuses on the remembrance of the 1985 Escalante Massacre while featuring visual media created through the craft of paper making.
During their workshop in the yard, Ami and Enzo spoke about their time spent on Negros, collecting flora from the surrounding farms impacted by sugar monoculture industry. An industry they told us connects back to Scotland’s colonial past that was put in place by a Glasgow-based company with the intention to import sugar cheaply.
There was a discussion about the private ownership of Negros farmland and how it has led to economic violence through the exploitation of labour and environment. This exploitation has sparked workers movements protesting against unjust working conditions which have been met with violent repression.
They shared stories of the women they worked with during their time on the island, making paper from rice pulp and delivering paper making workshops with the children on the island. They explained how the craft helped them build their research by providing a tactile connection to the land and its people.
We were shown the same method of paper making learnt by Ami and Enzo on Negros by using the soft rice pulp as a base and then adding and pieces of boiled plants picked from Queens Park and the surrounding areas.
It was noted that this way of capturing the different forms and textures of the plants was reminiscent of botanic illustrations which could keep as part of a study of the plant life from the places they visited.
Paper making with Enzo Camacho and Ami Lien – text & photos by Miriam Ali.