¡CityArts! Plant Paper Community Installation

Working with Providence ¡CityArts! youth, local artist and papermaker May Babcock led a week-long plant-to-paper workshop (September 22 - September 27th, 2019) culminating in this installation of plant paper. 

The workshop thematically explored the relationships between plant and human histories and their movements in South Providence. It was inspired by the idea of ‘mapping’ and documenting the immediate South Providence neighborhoods and their wild urban plants. 

Over the course of a week, youth participants learned how to create handmade papers from foraged wild urban plant fibers and waste paper. Students harvested plants, picked up trash, photographed plants in the neighborhood, and learned how to process the fibers and scrap paper into creative handmade papers using kitchen blenders and a ‘mould and deckle’. A ‘mould and deckle’ is a set of frames which the paper pulp settles into to form a sheet of paper, the ‘deckle’ creates straight edges on the paper sheet. Additionally, students embedded their photos in individual paperworks. 

Participating Young Artists
J'Laurie, Isaiah, Cesarleo, Antonio, Mya, Jayden, Dianelli, Jniya, Lillyana, Jaydin, Donovan, Adrian, Susan

Teaching Assistants
Addelis Morel, Didier Lucceus, Chelsea Fernando

Special thanks to
Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, Providence Biennial for Contemporary Art, Kinsey Crawford, Michelle Nugent, Jennifer Dalton Vincent

PRESS
Art gallery enlivens basement of Rhode Island State House, NBC 10 News, November 21, 2019

EXHIBITED AT
Providence ¡CityArts! Gallery
Rhode Island State House

This project was generously supported by the following organizations: Providence ¡CityArts!, Providence Biennial for Contemporary Art, and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts.