Ringling College of Art and Design welcomes a guest from Yale University this Monday with a presentation in the Academic Center Auditorium from Jae Jennifer Rossman, director of the department of area studies and humanities research support at the Yale University Library. In the talk, which plays off the current Peace Paper Project exhibit currently showing at the college, Rossman will address the intertwined and oftentimes collaborative goals and journeys of socially minded artists and archivists. Free and open to the public, the presentation begins February 19, 11:30am, in the Ringling College Academic Center Auditorium.

As much an artistic social endeavour as a socially aware artistic enterprise, the Peace Paper Project leads community workshops and teaches traditional papermaking techniques as a means of meditation, communal gathering and art therapy. Some find comfort in the mechanical nature of the process, others engage the transformative aspect as they change old clothes—memories—into fresh paper and potential from their own hand. Begun by artists Drew Mattot and Margaret Mahan, the Peace Paper Archives resides within the Yale University Library system, facilitated by Rossman.

First contacted by Mahan with a collection of the Peace Paper Project’s finished works, Rossman agreed to purchase the assembled books and artifacts as the beginnings of an archive, but she had a condition. “That we would develop an ongoing relationship,” she says, “where they would send documentation of their public events and workshops.” Rossman saw the value in the Peace Paper Project, and saw it was twofold. Not only were Mattot, Mahan and the project regulars creating stunning work all their own that could be shared as finished art, but they were creating community experiences that would never come again. “And their work in the community is just as important as the final products that they make,” says Rossman.

In the Academic Center Auditorium this coming Monday, Rossman will talk about the Peace Paper Project and the archiving process, but also expand upon the relationship between artist and archivist, each needing the other like the fabled warrior and poet, and each necessary to the other’s desire for social justice and change.

Rossman takes the stage Monday, February 19, 11:30am at Ringling College.