The Center for Book and Paper Arts is pleased to announce the release of its publication Social Paper: Hand Papermaking in the Context of Socially Engaged Art. Funded by the Craft Research Fund, this collection of commissioned essays and documentation of a 2014 exhibition of the same name, is the first attempt to understand how new and recent applications of the art of hand papermaking operate within the theoretical and practical discourses of social practice that dominate contemporary art today.

Social Paper: Hand Papermaking in the Context of Socially Engaged Art features essays by papermaking expert Gail Deery; socially engaged artist Jillian Bruschera; social practice curator and theorist Stuart Keeler; craft historian and theorist Jenni Sorkin; and exhibition curators Jessica Cochran and Melissa Potter, who is also a prominent interdisciplinary artist and hand papermaker. The book features full color reproductions and artist texts by artists Kiff Slemmons, Laura Anderson Barbata, The People’s Library, Combat Paper, John Risseeuw, Julia Goodman and many others.

This publication is a must read for any artist, historian, curator or administrator associated with the growing field of socially engaged art, contemporary craft or the field of hand papermaking. We hope that this publication spurs additional investigations into the intersections of craft and socially engaged art.

To purchase your copy, email gordaz@colum.edu

Social Paper: Hand Papermaking in the Context of Socially Engaged Art
©2015 Edited by Jessica Cochran and Melissa Potter
Essays by Jillian Bruschera, Jessica Cochran, Gail Deery, Stuart Keeler, Melissa Potter, Jenni Sorkin
84 pages
$35