Hi folks! Shirin here! This is a post to share more about how I approached my artmaking during the residency at Rimbun Dahan. There has been quite a bit to unpack after the experience, so we’ve been slowly organizing the material to share with you guys.
For some context, the second part of the residency began in November, where I had the intention to:
Explore what is available in the space and see how they can inspire my process without heavily relying on purchased commercial art materials. Much of what was used was either recycled, upcycled or borrowed within the site of Rimbun Dahan itself.
Find colours and their associated stories that are site specific to Rimbun Dahan.
Continue my experimentation from the first part of the residency working with waste paper pulp and fibers.
Paper pulp was one of the first things I started on as it would take some time to process, mould and dry.
I was initially set on using discarded printing paper that would be found in the office, but an unexpected lack of it steered me towards using the cardboard box that was used to pack away all our equipment during the first month of our residency.
Shredding and soaking the cardboard pieces in hot water left an unexpectedly strong golden brown liquid which piqued my curiosity enough to see if it can be converted into ink.
This process is always the most time consuming - slowly simmering down the excess water from the liquid until a strong ink forms. My guess is that the liquid is an adhesive glue used to keep the different layers of cardboard together and is also what gives the cardboard its distinctive smell. While usually we would need to thicken our inks with a binder, this ink did not need an additional agent as the consistency was already thick enough.
This illustration is just a playful one that came to mind when I wanted to test out the ink with charcoal.
I hope you enjoyed this sharing and till next one!
Shirin
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