By Heidi Trautmann

In October 2015 the very first paper artists in the TRNC founded the very first Paper Art Association, namely Inci Kansu, Ismet Tatar, Emel Samioğlu and Simge Uygur, all of them IAPMA (International Association of Paper Making Artists), an association that was founded by the German artist Fred Siegenthaler in Düren in 1986.

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The purpose of the TRNC Paper Art Association and its members is to promote paper art and the art of making paper for use in the arts.

Meanwhile the young association has grown and there are now 21 members registered in May 2016. Besides the many preparatory works regarding the infrastructure of an association, they had first appearances in the public to introduce the association:

Ismet Tatar gave a presentation to the members of the Inner Wheel Club of the Rotarians.

In May this year, TRNC Paper Art Association organized workshops and an exhibition with works of their members at the METU in Kalkanli in cooperation with Serhat Selişik, Dept. of Arts.

On May 11 Inci Kansu held a seminar to an interested audience, mostly teachers and students, about paper as such, its beginnings and its journey from the East across the globe and finally about the history of the use of paper for the arts.

It is a most interesting new field for the practicing artists and art teachers in North Cyprus, an art which seems to have no limits as it is being used in other fields, for example in music and fashion as well.

During the following days Inci Kansu, Ismet Tatar and Emel Samioğlu have led separate workshops to teach the making of paper from recycled paper, the further use of the produced paper and how to make objects from paper pulp. The workshops met with high interest.

There will be further workshops and seminars on the association’s agenda, the next will take place still in May at the Eastern Mediterranean University – EMU – in Famagusta.  For October, the founding month, I was told, an annual exhibition is planned.

The members of the association are working on finding a home for the association, preferably in the Old City of Nicosia where it is envisioned to entertain regular classes.

The arts are a living matter, they never stand still,  they go along with social and political development and are not to be silenced by anything that rises up against them. We know from past centuries, that artists are the ones that record history, that show us ways to follow, that make fashion and create visions….and that put the finger in the wounds of our world.