Until the fall of the Ottoman Empire, long before panty pulping, Kagıthane had a booming paper industry that gave the district its name. In April 2012 Peace Paper Project headed to Istanbul, Turkey to help in an effort to revitalize traditional hand papermaking by assisting in the development of a new paper center in Kagıthane. With the support of the Kagıthane Municipality and the Turkish Cultural Foundation, we were fortunate to break in the new studio while also holding workshops for Darüssafaka School, a free boarding school for yetim children (children without fathers). In Istanbul, reverence for traditional Islamic arts permeates every setting. Each metro station features its own combination of mosaics, miniatures, stained glass, book arts, wood carving, calligraphy, and ebru marbling exhibits. On the street, the blue evil eye follows you from taxis to flower stalls, with twists of traditional music filling the spaces between. It was no surprise that paper would be treated with similar adoration, even with so few paper artists. While there are several hand papermakers in Turkey, there were no papermaking studios in Istanbul until this May, when Kagıthane turned their appreciation into action and unveiled their new paper house. Drew Matott and I arrived to the future site of the paper center in early April. The log-cabin-style building, situated in a field along a stream that leads to the Golden Horn, had just been gutted and reduced to a shell. We toured the space and Drew advised on the ideal location for floor drains, the beater, and papermaking vats. Besides the paper studio, the center would also include a room for printmaking and calligraphy, a small library, gallery space, kitchen, and parlor. We did not wait for the center's official opening to start pulling sheets. We set up outside of the studio the day following our arrival, pulping cement-encrusted pants beside the Sadabad Mosque. We demonstrated papermaking to everyone who strolled by and trained as many municipal employees as we could, using our laid screen in order to stay true to the Islamic tradition. We also created an Allah watermark, which helped us connect with the crowds entering and leaving the mosque. In time, we moved into the studio and began a residency pulping peculiar fibers, ranging from construction clothes to underwear. On weekends, Peace Paper held workshops for students at Darüssafaka school. Since 1863, Darüssafaka has provided as many as 900 fatherless children at a time with an invaluable education. By graduation, all students are at least bilingual and many travel internationally for college. While all of the students live at the school, on weekends those with families in the Istanbul area are permitted to go home, while the rest stay on campus. For this remaining group, there are special electives like folk music, badminton, and pinhole photography. It is with this group that we created "Paper Club." I was amazed by the interest and dedication with which the Darüssafaka students encountered hand papermaking. We designed special watermarks per their request, such as the Turkish star and crescent, and Ataturk's signature. Fabricating new watermarks in Istanbul was simple, as many stores sold thin pendants for necklaces with iconic designs and writing, which could be sewed onto the mould. We made a habit of changing watermarks constantly, much to our students' delight. With Darüssafaka, we started with large moulds and moved small as the weeks passed. The kids decided on the color of pulp to be used the following week, and I soon found myself adding sequins to the rag in the beater. The students came up to the chemistry classroom on the top floor of the school every Saturday to meet us for Paper Club. After two sessions, I began taking orders from them: grabbing more Pellon, fetching pulp, et cetera. They met the process with an inspiring balance of technicality and creativity. Some students would kiss off four sheets in a row, back into the vat, before feeling satisfied with a piece. One of Peace Paper's intentions in working with both Kagıthane Municipality and Darüssafaka school was to build a bridge between the two institutions. It is our hope one day to see Darüssafaka students making paper at the Kagıthane paper center, and to see each group benefit from this artistic exchange. Time will tell how this relationship develops. Kagıthane certainly has the interest and the resources to host a successful papermaking center, while Darüssafaka has enthusiastic youth eager to continue making paper. Together, and with help from the international papermaking community, these organizations are capable of creating a fruitful hand papermaking program in Istanbul.
