Between Sheets and Scripts: Translation through Print and Paper (2025)
This collaboration between Yangbin Park and Danqi Cai combines printmaking and papermaking to investigate the transformative interplay between material and message, focusing on the art of translation—the inherent challenge of conveying one language into another. Working in Hangul (Korean) and Hanzi (Chinese), each artist selects four evocative words as starting points: Migration, Poem, Destiny, and Self (Yangbin Park) and Good, Married Woman, Safety, and Obey (Danqi Cai).
The collaborators reimagine them through the tactile creation of paper using their unique techniques, such as Joomchi and blow-out. These crafted papers meditate on language, texture, and meaning, capturing the elusive sociocultural nuance of the words that often resist complete translation from one language (culture) into another.
Upon exchanging these handcrafted papers, the artists engage in a creative dialogue, transforming the narratives of the sheets into poems, prose, or visual imagery through directly printing (monotype on laser cut craft form) on the sheets or sewing crafted papers (Joomchi) onto the substrates. The collaborators respond to the words' meanings by reinventing the papers, reflecting on how the materiality of paper and the meaning of language both challenge and enrich the translation of the words.
After printing on each other's papers, the artists exchange half of the artworks again. Each ends up with four collaborative pieces, half translating from Hangul to Hanzi and half the other way around. Each artist's collection embodies both individual expression and shared exploration, highlighting the transformative power of collaboration.
This project, Between Sheets and Scripts, examines the complex yet symbiotic relationship between printmaking and papermaking. We translate—not a pursuit of perfect equivalence but an ever-evolving conversation where meaning is reinterpreted and reimagined, constantly defying complete translation.
