Projects
Below you can read about some of the projects I’ve made over the parat years.
Paper Cuts
Exhibition in Japan
Sound, Paper Cuts, Photos
Paper Cuts
My paper cut beings travels the world!
Paper Cuts
Help The Waste Paper People make new friends!
Andersen Festival
Paper cuts for Andersen Festival
Paper cut workshops
Online and phsycal workshops
Help The Waste Paper People make new friends!
In the project “The Waste Paper People,” I aim to highlight the potential of recycled materials and upcycling. Below, you can read about The Waste Paper People and the possibilities of a workshop where participants experience the joy and beauty of recycling/upcycling paper in a creative process.
How The Waste Paper People came to be
I found a box with discarded gift wrap from Christmas Eve. According to the sorting instructions, gift wrap should be sorted as residual waste and incinerated. I thought:
It’s a shame to burn this paper. Maybe the scissors can create something out of it?
The scissors cut, and a glue stick also helped. And that’s how The Waste Paper People were born instead of ending up in the incinerator. On this page, you can see some of my members of The Waste Paper People (see photos with a black background).
Workshop Offered
I have developed a concept for how I teach making new members of The Waste Paper People. On my latest trip to Japan, I tested the concept, where over 300 Japanese children, young people, and adults created imaginative new members (see photos from workshops in Japan).
I now also offer workshops in Denmark, where I teach how participants can make new members of The Waste Paper People.
The target group for these workshops includes cultural institutions such as libraries, museums, art schools, etc. Additionally, public authorities and private companies that want to focus on recycling and upcycling, for example, at a staff event or an event targeted at citizens or customers.
My workshops can always be tailored to needs. A typical session includes:
- Number of participants: up to 30 people
- Target group: children, young people, and adults
- Duration: 1.5 hours
Who does what?
I provide:
- Materials: Paper, scissors, glue sticks, etc.
- PR package: Finished texts about the workshop, including graphics. The material can be used by the host as needed for press, website, social media, intranet, etc.
Workshop presentation:
- Brief introduction to my world of paper cutting (using PowerPoint)
- Teaching how participants make new members of The Waste Paper People. As inspiration, I show how I create members of The Waste Paper People
- Assisting and guiding participants so they make their paper cuts and experience the joy of using their creativity
The host provides:
- Venue with tables and chairs
- Projector and screen for PowerPoint
- Handling registrations and any participation fee. The host can choose to charge a fee, which goes to the host. The host sets the fee amount.
If there’s interest, I can, for example, start the workshop with a presentation on why circular economy, including recycling and upcycling, is important in a country like Denmark.
Feel free to contact me for more information about workshop possibilities, including prices, etc.
See all my members of The Waste Paper People.
Exhibition in Japan:
The Sound of the Scissors’ Redemption of the Paper Cut People
In 2017, musician, composer, and sound artist Robert Cole Rizzi, photographer Karen Relster, and I developed the exhibition “The Sound of the Scissors’ Redemption of the Paper Cut People”. The exhibition combined paper cuts, sounds, poetry, and photos in a new way.
The exhibition was shown for three months in H.C. Andersen Park in Funabashi, Tokyo. It was a part of the official program for the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the beginning of diplomatic relations between Japan and Denmark.
In the project, Robert Cole Rizzi recorded the – for the normal ear – unknown and peculiar sounds that occur when my scissors release the paper cut people from the paper. It’s the sound of scissors cutting and the sound of my hands folding and turning the paper. Yes – it’s simply the sound of when the paper cut people are freed by the scissors. These recordings were processed by Robert Cole Rizzi into two new soundtracks for the exhibition.
In August 2017, Robert Cole Rizzi and I traveled to Japan to set up and open the exhibition, which was located in two consecutive exhibition rooms in Hans Christian Andersen Park. The guests of the exhibition could, by going from one room to another, follow the two phases of the paper cut people’s lives – from “depression” inside the paper to “redemption and freedom” outside the paper.
The two soundtracks that Robert Cole Rizzi made for the exhibition can be found on Soundcloud. In the soundtrack for the exhibition’s first room, Rober incorporated a poem I wrote for the exhibition. In the poem, the paper cut people express their despair of being engulfed in the paper:
I fell paralyzed – my senses are visibly impaired.
But as the seed in the soil thirsting for water,
my frayed soul is still intact.
This is the straw I cling to,
and precisely that, brings hope
The poem was performed in 15 different languages.
Listen to Robert Cole Rizzi’s soundtrack for the exhibition’s first room on Soundcloud.
The soundtrack for the second room consisted of the sounds that occur when my scissors free the paper cut people. Listen to Robert Cole Rizzi’s soundtrack for the exhibition’s second room on Soundcloud.
In room number two, the guests could see Karen Relster’s 10 large photographs of the liberating moments where my scissors free the paper cut people from the paper. You can see Karen Relster’s 10 photos on this website.
My paper cut beings travels the world!
In the project “De Klippede” you meet 10 unique paper cut beings, who all have been hidden deep inside my paper. With a helping hand from the scissors, they are all cut free and given the freedom to travel around in this wonderful and diverse world, that we live in.
“De Klippede” can roughly be translated into “those who have been cut free from the paper“.
In Karen Relster’s 10 photographs you see the freed paper cut beings on their way around the world.
The 10 photographs have been shown in many places in Denmark, including the Hans Christian Andersen Museum in Odense. In addition, it has been shown in several places in Japan, Denmark and China.
In the book “De Klippede” written by author Per Roholt you meet 10 unique paper cut people with cryptic names like oio, ada and xex. The book can be purchased in my shop.
Papercut for a theater performance
In 2019, the famous danish actor Lars Bom asked me if I would make a paper cut for his play “With Kind regards H.C. Andersen”.
The task was to make a big paper cut inspired by an H.C. Andersen poem about death and sorrow. The poem was a part of the performance. I had never before made such a huge paper cut, and it was a big challenge to me. I had to cut it on a much smaller scale first, and then enlarge it afterward.
In the play, H.C. Andersen – played by Lars Bom – was on stage with three musicians. The play explored and challenged the traditional theater set up by means of eg. music, sounds, poems – and paper cuts.
The play premiered in 2019 during the H.C. Andersen Festivals at the Teater Momentum in Odense. Afterward the play was touring Denmark for the next two years.
Paper cuts for Hans Christian Andersen Festival’s opening show
I made several paper cuts for the Hans Christian Andersen Festival’s opening show in 2018, which was a dance performance entitled De 5 Papirklip (The 5 Paper Cuts). The performance was shown in Odense Concert Hall with 1.500 persons in the audience and it alternated between music, dance, spoken word, innovative graphics – and paper cuts.
I also contributed to the poster of the performance. My task was to connect the dancers from PIVOT Production with my paper cut universe.
It was a great pleasure for me to see the show – and also how my paper cuts were displayed along with all the other exciting elements and genres that were included in the show.
Paper cut workshops
I regularly exhibit my framed paper cut people. I have exhibited in more than 110 places in Denmark, Japan, and the US. I have also hosted several paper cut workshops in the same countries.
Over the years, I’ve traveled the world to do these workshops. During the corona pandemic, I had to consider new solutions. So now I’m doing online workshops from home on Zoom or Teams.
Since 2021, I mave made around 30 workshops with Japanese, American, and Danish participants. There are new upcoming online workshops in my calendar.
At my paper cut workshops, the participants get – under my guidance – the opportunity to try their own hand at paper cutting. Throughout the workshop, the participants experience the very best of cutting paper – including the moment where the paper is unfolded, the happy paper cut people emerge, and the magic occurs.
In the photo on the page, you can see how I have organized my little online paper cut cave.
A workshop – physical as well as online – takes between 1 and 1.5 hour.
Feel free to contact me if you are interested in an online paper cut workshop.
