Barbara Tetenbaum (bt): What is your background and education? Andrea Nieke (an): I trained for two years as an industrial bookbinder at a printing company in Potsdam \[Germany\]. Following that I studied at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design in Halle in the book art department with Professor Mechthild Lobisch. I graduated in October 2008 with a thesis focused on papermaking. What experiences helped form your interest in papermaking? Paperóeven industrialówas fascinating to me from the start. Actually, it was the work I was doing in the printing firm in Potsdam overseeing the final folding and collation of the printed pages that sparked my interest. When setting up the machines, I became aware of and sensitive to the special material properties and structure of paper. I loved to problem solve the running of the machines and to make adjustments according to the weight, surface quality, or the amount of moisture in each type of paper. Making books involves the forming and control of materials and I was continually exploring the physical limits of paper during my studies. Was there someone who had a strong influence on your work? Naturally, my studies with Mechthild Lobisch in bookbinding influenced me. Also Frauke Otto provided constant support for my work. Frauke is a book artist and oversees the papermaking workshop at the Burg. That said, I am still relatively unfamiliar with the contemporary hand papermaking scene. Please describe your diploma work. The title of my diploma work is Tabula Rasa. It consists of eight 29 x 36 cm \[11.4 x 14.2 inch\] sheets of white paper. I rendered anonymous personal photographs in paper in the form of watermarks. The source photos came from Andrea Nieke, Tabula Rasa, 2008, 29 x 36 cm \[11.4 x 14.2 inches\], one of eight sheets, each with a watermark in four tonal layers using cotton linters pulp. All photos courtesy of the artist. One of eight watermarks for Tabula Rasa. One of eight watermarks for Tabula Rasa. bt an bt an bt an summer 2009 - 35 What techniques and/or materials did you use and what did you have the most success with? I made my diploma work using four silk screens. One was uncoated, and the three others I exposed to render the individual shade values from the photo. After forming the sheets using the four silk screens, I carefully couched all four layers on top of each other, creating a complex image. It quickly became obvious that cotton linters pulp was the best to use. It has very short fibers and works well with the image areas of the silk screen. What inspires you most about the work that you created? The blank, white sheet of paper! It appears so simple and unimposing. It could still serve as stationary and doesn't differ fundamentally in its outer structure from writing paper. But it's no longer innocent. The embedded images appear and disappear with the light. Photographic information becomes intangible, transient. Only remaining is the idea that remembering is possible. Will you take this work in a new direction? The next project will be a book in which the images become visible as the reader turns the pages. I'm happy to let go of the technical limitations of backlighting each sheet of paper and look forward to a simpler approach, where readers can make their own discoveries. Translation by Angela Clinkscales & Barbara Tetenbaum Andrea Nieke invites readers to visit www.club-mantell.de, a website maintained by club mantell, an artist group formed by alumni of the Burg book class. Fotothek \[in Weimar\], a large private collection of lost or "forgotten" photographs. When backlit, these photos appear as watermarks, and disappear as the light diminishes, the paper remaining white. I worked with an exposed silk screen, formed and couched four very thin layers of paper to create the four tones in each image. The images I chose were taken in the mid-twentieth century. At that time private photographs were quite affordable but the photographic picture still possessed a comparatively high material value. Groups of people posed in front of the camera with the hope to capture forever and remember this moment. Today, almost fifty years later, these photos have fallen from the family archives and their identities are no longer known. These seemingly intimate pictures can reveal nothing more to us than a fleeting sense of connection. In a way, this made it possible for me to work relatively freely with them. What was the starting point for your work? Was there a conceptual as well as technical basis? I had the idea to produce complex images in paper using several shade values. I first explored this technique in two earlier bodies of work during my studies. For a book accompanying the art installation Library of Fear by Babek Saed, I attempted to visualize light in paper by adhering several thin sheets of paper over one another. Later I produced the signs of the I Ching \[a Chinese oracle system\] in paper using tape directly on the screens and couching the sheets together. The next step was to simulate several tonal values in paper. I had the goal to produce very even, smooth sheets without a deckle edge that would quietly reveal their watermarked images. I wanted the images to emerge from a seemingly neutral sheet of paper. I didn't know if my idea would work technically and I didn't know if anyone had tried this before.