Paper Challenge

For the first challenge in my Master’s course, we were asked to take blank paper and make something from/with it. We could fold it, cut it, tear it, burn it – almost anything, except for draw on it. It was set as a fun challenge to get us thinking creatively and to help us get to know our fellow students. We posted the outcomes on Pinterest and commented on each other’s work.

I ended up submitting three pieces. The first piece was a collage made from lots of little bits of torn lokta paper. This was actually something I’d already started when the challenge was set (for the UMN Christmas card). Lokta paper is handmade from the lokta bush which can be found on the southern slopes of Nepal’s Himalayan forests. It’s very strong and durable (meaning the tearing process I went through for this was quite tough!) The earliest surviving lokta paper document appears in Nepal’s National Archives in Kathmandu in the form of the sacred Buddhist text, the Karanya Buha Sutra. The Karanya Buha Sutra was written in Lichchhavi script and block printed on lokta paper and is estimated to be between 1,000 and 1,900 years old.

Feeling guilty about submitting a piece that I’d already started, I decided to have another go. The Dashain holiday started this week in Nepal. It’s the main holiday for Nepali Hindus in the Kathmandu valley. The weather has also changed with monsoon season ending and there is some wind picking up which signals kite flying season for the kids in the valley. I decided to take another sheet of lokta paper and cut a kite from it. I had intended to use the space left in the large sheet to photograph Kathmandu thru it, but this proved difficult for two reasons: The paper wasn’t rigid enough to hold flat (I could have fixed this by attaching a frame maybe), and second the paper was quite opaque when held up. In the end, I fixed the cut-out kite to a window and photographed this.

I was pleased with how it looked, but still felt like I needed to do more. Finally, I decided to use the Himalayan mountain range as my inspiration. Once again using lokta paper, I made an image depicting the vast peaks. Sadly, these days the real mountain range is only visible on particularly clear days in the Kathmandu Valley. When they do make an appearance though, they take your breath away.