by Isabella Tallman-Jones

This thoughtfully curated exhibition was brought to life by curators Jill Powers and Lisa Miles of the North American Hand Papermakers for the organization’s Guest Curated Exhibition Triennial. With collaboration between the guest curators and the Robert C. Williams Museum of Papermaking, the resulting deep dive has produced an insightful perspective on an often-forgotten ancient practice. Bark paper has existed within a centuries-long genealogy of craft in places like Uganda, Indonesia, Mexico, Hawaii, and a variety of Polynesian and Pacific-Islander cultures. Somewhat attributed to the Global South, it is no wonder why this alternative production of natural matrix does not exist within the Western hegemonic history of writing and visual culture at large.

The exhibit’s contemporary innovations utilize the signifiers of civilizations’ papermaking pasts. Through timeless pattern-making practices and the further development of a shared semiotic language, both representational and abstract; the artists transcend temporal obstacles through artistic creation. Repetition and the meditative beating of pulp and cellulose are central to the ancestral language of symbols and techniques of meaning-making.

Some of the topics broached by these contemporary interpretations include immigration, tradition, community, and issues of belonging in a post-colonial present. These themes bubble to the surface of Enrique Chagoy’s Illegal Alien’s Meditations on el Ser y la Nada. The accordion-style artist's book unfolds into a colorful comic-like narrative throughout its ten lithographic prints on handmade Amate (Nahuatl for “bark paper”). The illustrations are stylized, suggesting its inspiration from pre-colonial Nahuatl codices. This reference informs the viewer’s reading, meant to be traditionally read from right to left. The dots and slashes at the corner of each page share the number/date system used by civilizations under the Aztec empire. The title page pictures the protagonist as an Aztec sculpture head attached to a classicized female body. The head reoccurs in the corner of another page with the subtitled “Hernán Cortés” after the man behind the atrocities of the Spanish Conquest of New Spain. Other similar sculptural elements are littered throughout the book, often written over and struck through by other symbols in a red wash. Additional scenes are composited from comic and mass cultural depictions of white people interacting, often derogatorily, with a cast of unnamed indigenous and stereotyped characters. These interactions are especially evident on a page with a series of 12 comic vignettes. Some of these vignettes have been altered with superimposed images. The overall effect is reminiscent of the Spanish casta paintings, which promoted a newly invented racial hierarchy to scientifically and culturally justify the systematic extermination of the New World’s inhabitants. The original ephemera from which Chagoya takes inspiration is virtually nonexistent today, though its practices and techniques have miraculously survived generations and centuries after the Spanish Inquisition. Bark paper production and Nahuatl writing practices were effectively banned by the conquistadors– burned, denigrated, and rewritten histories. The title of the work refers to its contemporary take on the Mexican-American experience and how it might comically parallel a seemingly distant colonial past. Further, the title evokes Jean-Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness as an acknowledgment of the existentialist center of the

Mexican-American ontological experience. The meditative processes associated with the making of the artist's book itself are an active forging of a connection to the past and an upholding of that legacy, but also a history lesson that might allow the viewer to make space for a new reality long silenced.

Several works in the exhibition are spiritually oriented such as the Otomí “Spirit Figures” or the Hawaiian lananu ‘u mamao or “Oracle Tower” entitled Pa ‘aikalani (Grounded to the Heavens) by Dalani Tanahy. The wispy and ethereal materiality of bark paper lends itself well to the art and expression of fleeting and translucent light that of a specter. The resulting exhibit is a diverse spectrum of these innumerable qualities: delicate and hardened, narrative-driven or abstract, and encaustic, coptic, or chemically treated.

Ecologically, the mutuality of bark paper’s production is clear to see. UNESCO’s 2005 decree of bark cloth as a “Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage” is a testament to its reemergence in contemporary artistic practices. Artists across time are called to action, creating a renewed awareness of the need for emphatic preservation of marginalized cultural practices previously destroyed. Artists are reclaiming and preserving marginalized cultural traditions, using sustainable methods to transform terrestrial resources into mediums for memory and ritual. Bark paper isn’t just historical; it’s social, cultural, and political. It has endured colonization, intellectual suppression, and mass re-education efforts throughout history, making its preservation crucial for understanding our collective past.

Bark Rhythms: Contemporary Innovations & Ancestral Traditions serves as a profound testament to the enduring significance of bark paper within global cultural heritage. By bridging past and present, the artists not only showcase the beauty and versatility of this ancient practice but also provoke reflection on its ecological, social, and political implications. As we marvel at the intricate works on display, we are reminded of the resilience of marginalized traditions and the imperative of their preservation in shaping a more inclusive and enlightened future. Through the medium of bark paper, we glimpse not only history but also the potential for transformative dialogue and mutual understanding across cultures and generations.