Paper as a Responsive Threshold: Material Correspondence and Assemblage in Collagraph Printmaking

Abstract

This practice-based research positions paper as a surface-ground mediator and responsive threshold in collagraph printmaking. Developed through a series of site visits in southern Finland, I incorporate locally sourced materials such as crushed granite and mineral sediment that are then embedded within collagraph plates. Here, the matrix itself becomes a geological assemblage of surface scatters, and paper becomes translated into another surface assemblage through pressure. Paper takes on the role of a surficial interface between the plate and its own ability to determine how matter is absorbed, distributed, recorded, and embossed with each imprint. Unfolding through cycles of printing and reprinting, I test how material correspondences evolve under differing pressures, conditions, and the degradation of the plate structure. With each pass through the press, the dialogue between field-gathered material and studio-based processes is intertwined, and the printed surface emerges as a record of materials in flux. Paper becomes the interplay between the absence and presence of matter, gathering the dispersed materialities of the plate’s geological assemblage into a coherent form that takes shape through its own materiality. The resulting surficial dialogue reveals paper’s ability to function as a stratigraphic correspondence, and an evolving relation of duration and event. This research seeks to contribute to current conversations surrounding paper’s performative abilities within printmaking practices that align with the symposium’s focus on material and process-based inquiry.