Peace Paper Project
Organized by Drew Matott
United States of America + Germany + India + Poland
Peace Paper Project is an international community arts initiative that utilizes traditional papermaking as a form of trauma therapy, social engagement, and community activism. Since 2011, it has conducted hundreds of workshops worldwide in conjunction with community leaders, mental health professionals, and art therapists. It has had over 30,000 workshop participants and helped launch 40 papermaking programs that use papermaking as a form of healing and community engagement. The Project is dedicated to helping strengthen communities through its workshops, interventions, and international projects.
Peace Paper Project uses the ancient tradition of hand papermaking as a vehicle for personal expression and cultural change. Because of its innovations in portability and interest in resolving current social issues, paper is no longer just a chapter in a history textbook; it has become a beacon for socially engaged art. The process of making paper is a direct manifestation of resilience, as it requires breaking something down in order to create something new and beautiful. Through direct collaboration with art therapists, Peace Paper Project brings papermaking to healing populations. From clinical settings to community art centers, the Project uses paper as an expressive tool for coping with trauma.
The portable studio enables the Project to use paper as a private arts and healing workshop, and as a form of public intervention. By setting up in urban centers and student unions, pedestrians are invited to become participants in papermaking processes that address specific social issues. Papermaking with invasive aquatic plants is an exciting public action piece. Using pedal power, communities transform non-native plants into pulp for papermaking that reflects the human imprint on the environment. Embracing the theme of recycling waste material, Peace Paper Project has made paper using spent grain from microbreweries in the USA, Germany, and Poland. Other examples of Peace Paper Project engagements include papermaking with military veterans, using unservicable uniforms in our Veteran Paper Workshop, and papermaking using undergarments to address sexual violence in communities with itsformer Panty Pulping program.
peacepaperproject.org
Peace Paper Project uses the ancient tradition of hand papermaking as a vehicle for personal expression and cultural change. Because of its innovations in portability and interest in resolving current social issues, paper is no longer just a chapter in a history textbook; it has become a beacon for socially engaged art. The process of making paper is a direct manifestation of resilience, as it requires breaking something down in order to create something new and beautiful. Through direct collaboration with art therapists, Peace Paper Project brings papermaking to healing populations. From clinical settings to community art centers, the Project uses paper as an expressive tool for coping with trauma.
The portable studio enables the Project to use paper as a private arts and healing workshop, and as a form of public intervention. By setting up in urban centers and student unions, pedestrians are invited to become participants in papermaking processes that address specific social issues. Papermaking with invasive aquatic plants is an exciting public action piece. Using pedal power, communities transform non-native plants into pulp for papermaking that reflects the human imprint on the environment. Embracing the theme of recycling waste material, Peace Paper Project has made paper using spent grain from microbreweries in the USA, Germany, and Poland. Other examples of Peace Paper Project engagements include papermaking with military veterans, using unservicable uniforms in our Veteran Paper Workshop, and papermaking using undergarments to address sexual violence in communities with itsformer Panty Pulping program.
peacepaperproject.org
about the organizer
Drew Matott received his MFA in Book & Paper Arts from Columbia College -Chicago (2008) and his BFA in Printmaking from Buffalo State College (2001). He co-founded the Green Door Studio (2002), People's Republic of Paper (2003), Deep Fried Books (2006), Pulp Printing (2006), the Combat Paper Project (2007), The Portable Paper Studio (2008), Free Your Mind Press (2008), BluSeed Paper Mill (2009), Papermaking as Trauma Intervention (2010), Peace Paper Project (2011), Veteran Paper Workshop (2011), Panty Pulping (2013), Pedal Power (2013), and St. Pauli Paper (2016).
Drew lives in Hamburg, Germany, where he divides his time between teaching for the Volkshochschule, completing studio work, and designing new papermaking endeavors for Peace Paper Project. In 2019, he was the recipient of the Rudolph Arnheim Award from the American Art Therapy Association, and with Gretchen Miller he co-authored Chapter 41: Papermaking of The Routledge Companion to Health Humanities.
He has taught Photography and Contemporary Printmaking at North Country Community College, and Papermaking courses at the Community College of Vermont, Edgewood College, Ursuline College, Massachusetts College of Art, and San Francisco Center for the Book. Since 2009, he has taught and exhibited internationally and completed numerous artist residencies.
interview