Sigrid Holmwood is a half-British, half-Swedish artist based in London. By using the persona of a ‘peasant-painter’ and making all her paints and materials from scratch using historical and traditional recipes, she focuses on the way that materials and the performative interaction with them can generate meaning. During her time in China she has stayed with Naxi Dongba masters in a village in the Yulong mountains of Yunnan and learnt their way of making paper, she is now continuing to respond to this experience in Beijing.

http://www.sigridholmwood.co.uk/

Workshop No.1: Paper Dyeing

The team at The Pavilion has been growing some Chinese Indigo, other wise known as Dyer’s Knotweed (polygonum tinctorium) at Little Donkey Farm, a community supported agriculture project in Beijing. Now it is harvest time, join us at Little Donkey Farm to harvest the leaves and extract the indigo pigment. We will also use the fresh leaves to dye paper blue.
Time: September, 16th, 7.30 am (return at 4:30 pm)
Venue: The pavilion and The shop in Beijing (2503- B- Building 2, Northern District, Pingod Community, No.32 Baiziwan Road,Chaoyang District)

We will make Naxi paper and European style paper together this time.

The Naxi make their own paper which they use to write their scriptures in their unique hieroglyphic script. It is made from a the bark of type of Daphne native to Yunnan, the Naxi call it the ‘Wolf-poison plant with the beautiful fragrance’. I learnt how to make Naxi paper from a Dongba Shaman Master in a village in the Yulong mountains of Yunnan and I harvested some Wolf poison plant with the beautiful fragrance to bring back to Beijing. I have already peeled the bark for you, so now we have to beat it to a pulp and make the paper.

The Arabs brought the Chinese invention of paper with them to Europe in the 11th century, but because they didn’t have the plants that are used to make paper in China, such as mulberry or wolf-poison plant with the beautiful fragrance, they developed a way of making paper from old rags and clothes. I have made some pulp from the denim clothes of Hu Fang and Zhang Wei and also some brown pulp for the scraps of the sewing projects of The Tudor Group – an historical re-enactment group of which I am a member. We will need to re-wet the pulp and form the paper sheets.Together we will make some blue paper from the pulp of Hu Fang and Zhang Wei’s clothes, a 16th century European style paper from the pulp from the historical re-enactment group. and Naxi Dongba paper from Wolf poison plant to see how the materials and their stories interact.

Time: September, 21th, 11am to 5pm
Add: The Pavilion (2503- B- Building 2, Northern District, Pingod Community, No.32 Baiziwan Road,Chaoyang District)