1/18/12 at 7 pm
PAPER REHABILITATION PROJECT, SERIES 1 & 2
A Conversation About the Circulation of Paper
Motto Berlin
Skalitzer Str. 68, im Hinterhof
Excerpt from conversation between Danielle Aubert and Harry Burstyn, owner of Downtown Paper, a high-volume paper recycler in Detroit.
DA: How would you define “scrap”?
HB: Scrap is anything that is discarded. Like old bread — it’s scrap, it’s garbage, but I feed it to the birds. Scrap is anything that’s discarded that someone else can use. Whether it’s food, plastic, glass, paper. But someone else can recycle it to make something new out of it. It’s the ecological circle. We eat the animal, we have a bowel movement, we create fertilizer, grass, plants, the whole nine yards.
DA: I think that’s what’s interesting here, it’s a side of the circulation of paper that I didn’t think about, or know existed. When I think about recycled content I think about recycling centers, like the one at Holden. But what you have here is on a much bigger scale.
HB: I’m not a bottom feeder. I’m a top feeder. We do paper that goes into the making of new paper, whether it be writing, printing, diapers, whether it’s feminine hygiene products, paper plates, paper cups, tissues, napkins. Bottom feeders are MRFs (Material Recycling Facilities), collection centers. Bottom feeders are bulk grades, newspaper, cardboard, mixed paper. It can go into cardboard, roofing shingles, chip board, packaging. It can go into making itself.
----------------
12/9/11 at 6pm
PAPER REHABILITATION PROJECT, SERIES 1
Blank Book Launch
Short Presentation & Reading at 7 pm
Museum or Contemporary Art Detroit Store
4454 Woodward Ave
The blank books in this first series of the Paper Rehabilitation Project are made of stock found at a warehouse of excess, rejected and damaged paper. Each book contains four different sheets – Rolland Enviro, Oxford White, Cougar Natural Opaque, and Royal Cotton, manufactured by Cascades, Neenah, Domtar, and Wasau paper companies. We found three different stocks for the covers – blue and gray with a linen finish, and a plum, with a sort of faux-leather finish. They were bound by Janutol Printing on Detroit’s East side.
----------------
11/24-12/5/12
JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER
I.T.U. Zagreb with Narcissa Vukojević
Gallery at Croatian Designers Society, Zagreb
Photo by Ivan Mijić.
Judge A Book by Its Cover is a research project focusing on Croatian book cover design of the Yugoslavian era (1950-1990). We searched through over 10,000 books in public libraries, archives, private collections and second-hand bookstores for books to exhibit. We exhibited a relatively small selection of about 500 book covers at the Croatian Designers Society in Zagreb. The books, from over forty publishers, represent the work of more than fifty graphic designers. Many of these designers are relatively unknown to the public today.
----------------
9/24-25/2011, 12 - 6 pm
CENTER FOR ABANDONED LETTERHEAD
I.T.U. Detroit with Maia Asshaq
2128 Franklin Street, Detroit
Unused letterhead — paper that never met its full potential — is a kind of melancholic “pre-document”. In fact, because it bears out-of-date information it is rendered nearly useless. Its best hope is to be used as scrap paper or to be recycled. At the Center for Abandoned Letterhead we have collected paper from Detroit area businesses and organizations that have moved, changed their identities, or closed.
I.T.U., in collaboration with Maia Asshaq, will open the Center for Abandoned Letterhead for two days in a corner of Franklin Furniture store. This project takes place as part of the Detroit Design Festival.
----------------
Summer 2010
Work featured in
GRAPHIC #14 WORK & RUN: YOUNG STUDIOS