within reach

paper lab

Within reach is a workshop exploring eco-materials, focusing on handmade paper as both an artistic and ecological practice.

Through the processing of plant fibers, we will approach paper as a living medium and material, situated within its environment and in constant transformation. We will work with conventional and unconventional paper fibers, also incorporating urban wild plants found in the immediate surroundings and in the participants’ daily lives. 

We will consider paper not only as a support, but as a sculptural material and a medium for experimentation, in dialogue with the local territory and in resonance with the eco-material research lines of the members of La Escocesa.

We will be guided by Juan Pablo Velazquez Betancur and andi icaza-largaespada.

Session 1 — Introduction and Preparation of Paper Pulps

Wednesday, June 3 from 17h to 20h

This first session will serve as an introduction to hand-made paper tools and techniques.

We will learn how to identify conventional and unconventional paper fibers, including plant fibers found in urban environments and their potential uses in papermaking. We will also explore how to process these fibers (cutting, preparation, and treatment).

Session 2 — Forming sheets of paper and their possibilities 

Wednesday, June 10 from 17h to 20h

In this second session, we will focus on forming sheets of paper using frames (Western technique).

We will experiment with fiber mixtures and types of pulp, incorporating organic scraps or other found materials, exploring textures, transparencies, layers, and reliefs.

Finally, we will proceed with pressing the sheets produced and preparing them for drying.

Session 3 — Sheets, Sculptures, Installation, and Publications

Wednesday June 17 from 18h to 20h

We envision the final session as a space for collective exchange and review of the results, as well as a conversation about the material processes of the workshop.

We will present different approaches to working with sculpture and installation using handmade paper, as well as the expanded possibilities for its use in self-publishing, artist books, and other experimental practices with paper.

bio

andi icaza-largaespada is a Nicaraguan visual artist, researcher, and facilitator with connections and responsibilities in Central America, so-called Canada, and queer and displaced communities in the Global South. Their multidisciplinary practice crosses image, installation, materialities, and ritual, developing a poetic, political, and affective ecology of dissident (dis)orientations to grief, migration, history, and territory that seeks to articulate situated, translocal, and embodied narratives, and forms of resistance to extractivism and necropolitics. She collaborates constantly with human and more-than-human beings, in life, past and future, and bases her (continuous) learning on the territory, among peers, and with mentoring, among others.

Juan Pablo Velásquez Betancur is a visual artist and researcher. His practice focuses on themes related to the concepts of territory, memory, and image. He works on creating temporary spaces using paper and various visual expressions that converge through the medium of publishing. He explores publishing as a spatial gesture where narratives and temporal relationships converge; and finds in manual production a form of resistance to contemporary productivity. He completed the MACBA 2023–2024 independent studies program, ¿Dónde están los oasis?, with the collective publishing project “El cuerpo ante el archivo. Narrativas de la ausencia” . She has participated in the group exhibitions “Proyecto tesis 2020” with her graduation project “Territorio, confluencia en torno al habitar y el construir un significado del lugar” presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Bogotá (2020) and in “Panográfica” with the installation “Tono medio de lo visible” presented at the National University of Colombia (2018).

Activity coordinated by andi icaza-largaespada.

“Within reach” is part of REBOST, a program initiative managed autonomously and collectively by the members of La Escocesa, who decide which activities to organize based on the group’s interests and needs.

If you have any needs or questions regarding the accessibility of this activity, please visit our page on "access to La Escocesa" by clicking here.