This paper is black cotton pulp paint on unbleached abaca and Thai kozo. I made 20 large sheets of The Identified Death Toll of Palestinians in Gaza, One Year Later on a 36 x 80-inch papermaking mould at the University of Iowa Center for the Book during the period of September–October 2024 for my exhibition “I Will Not Look Away,” shown in the K.K. Merker Gallery at the University of Iowa Center for the Book, October 13—19, 2024.

To make the paper, I prepared pulp for two large sheets at a time. I sourced the unbleached abaca and Thai kozo from Carriage House Paper. I processed 450 grams of Thai kozo by soaking the fiber overnight, cooking for two hours with 90 grams of soda ash, cooling the cooked fiber overnight, then draining, rinsing, and beating the fiber by hand. Next, I beat 450 grams of unbleached abaca in a Hollander beater very lightly for one hour in order to retain fiber length and mimic some qualities of kozo. In a Japanese papermaking process called kamidashi, I hand rinsed the Thai kozo pulp in a large vat of water to rinse and separate the fibers, then I mixed in the abaca pulp thoroughly. I added a large quantity of formation aid, about three times the amount I would typically use to make a post of washi, in order to slow down the drainage time and promote even distribution of pulp during sheet formation.

I set up two large, 36 x 80-inch moulds parallel to each other, with the bucket of pulp situated between the two. I poured approximately 6 liters of slurry into each mould and used thin wooden shims to create a slight angle so that the pulp would roll gently to the other side of the mould, then moved the shims to the other end of the mould so that the pulp would roll back to the other side. I continued this process until the pulp settled fully on the mould surface.

Using a registration jig (pictured on page 7) I added 10 lines (tally marks) of overbeaten black cotton pulp paint to each of the 210 cells, adding up to 2,100 lines on each sheet. After the paper dried, I peeled the sheet off the mould and coated the back and front of each sheet with two layers of konnyaku solution. Finally, I misted the sheet with water and kneaded the paper for around 5 to 10 hours to create the momigami.

The samples included in this issue were cut from sheets 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, and 13 of the original series of 20. Pulp preparation, sheet formation, and surface treatments remain consistent across all sheets, with these differences: Sheets 1, 3, and 4 were formed and dried indoors; sheets 7, 8, and 13 were formed and dried outdoors. Sheets 1, 3, and 4 were kneaded for a longer period of time than sheets 7, 8, and 13, which led to a variation in texture and in size. After kneading, the sheets shrank from 36 x 80 inches to approximately 31 to 33 x 74 to 76 inches.

I cut each sample by hand; each one contains 9 to 10 tally marks and each tally mark represents a Palestinian life lost in Gaza.

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