This book introduces an offshoot of our Open Books project in which a group of artists in Wales has collaborated with artists from the China Academy of Art, Hangzhou, China, to present an ever growing exhibition of Chinese folding books to various countries of the world. In 'Paper Exchange' we presentsed each other with the challenge: what happens if we exchange our normal working materials? At first we thought Welsh artists could be sent rice papers, Chinese artists could be sent watercolour papers. But as we developed the idea in conversation with our Chinese friends, we realised that Western materials were already freely available in China and a more appropriate 'challenge' would be to send old maps, posters and book pages with a distinctly European patination to their artists. In the West there is a long tradition of drawing with the cut out/collage/papier collé and the ready made, and although obviously our Chinese colleagues might occasionally work like this, it is not a usual starting point in the studio. The material becomes something to investigate, tear, re-assemble, the usual rules are redundant.
In the messy business of making an artwork, materials and their qualities are central to an artist's whole practice. Whichever culture we grow up in we become carriers of long traditions which we explore and challenge. The questions raised about finding common ground between artists coming from long but differing traditions in a global, geographically shrinking world, and the potential for misunderstandings as well as mutual enrichment, has, we think, extended the dialogue which we hope is an essential part of Paper Exchange in the Open Books project. In order to reach across the divides of languages within this group, this book is written in English, Mandarin and Welsh.
Mary Husted and Maggie James, co-curators of Open Books and Paper Exchange