Assimilation

My practice explores paper not only as a surface for text, but as a material residue of process. During my MAFA, I became increasingly aware of how paper carries traces of administration, research, and creative work. Crinkles, fingerprints, and scuff marks record movements, conditions, and points of contact, revealing an archive of lived interaction beyond words.

Through recycling and papermaking, I created Assimilation (2022–2023), a book that merges textual and environmental information into layered, fragile pages. Discarded drafts, notes, and drawings were pulped, pressed, and reformed, embodying both destruction and renewal. The thickness and fragility of the paper shifted depending on the amount of pulp, echoing the instability of memory and the iterative nature of research.

As I worked, fragments of language surfaced—letters, marks, and partial words—traces of my supervisor’s influence and the shaping presence of academic discourse. These remnants merged with other fragments into a single, materialised entity of thought, reflecting the entanglement of creative and textual research.

Assimilation is both an artefact and a process: a physical manifestation of successes and failures, discoveries and reflections, and the knowledge that emerged through practice. The work embodies how research unfolds not only in written outcomes but also in the material transformations that accompany them.