“Paper Weight,” an art exhibit inside the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art by Elsa Mora, examines the transformative, fleeting and complex qualities of the mind through means of paper. The shadows, shades, shapes and colors of the paper serve to turn simple materials that might not have any emotional or memorable significance into something that feels familiar.
“My intention with this exhibition was to reflect on the diversity of humankind through the surprising power of an ordinary material,” said Mora.
“Paper Weight” has six different instillations: Fading, Mindscapes, Cartograms, Oblivious, Misunderstandings and One Hundred and One Notions. Each of these installations delves into the different aspects of the five cognitive faculties that make up the mind: consciousness, judgment, thinking, perception and memory.
The exhibit centers around two glass boxes that hold numerous small 3D objects made out of paper and glue. This installation is called One Hundred and One Notions, and each of the objects inside the glass box represent a mental syndrome or disorder. You can identify which disorder aligns with which object from a laminated guide that hangs from the glass box. 2D paper designs that vary in size hang on the museums walls displaying the other five installations. One wall holds a few larger pieces of work, while another has a cluster of small frames at its center.
The beauty of this exhibit comes from the simplicity of walking into the room and glancing at the pieces from afar; however, it only takes a few steps closer to understand the intricate and time-consuming nature of Mora’s work. Paper on glue is delicate — Mora admits that forming it into both 2D and 3D objects was a long project.
Paper Weight by Elsa Mora is on display at the JSMA until Jan. 20, 2019. (Henry Ward/Emerald)
“An idea came to mind that consciousness could be [seen] as a collective of small containers carrying everything that we know. I built the small paper ‘cups’ as those containers,” said Mora in the exhibit description. “Making them had to be done one at a time by cutting circles and applying pressure on them with a metal tool that has a ball on one end, usually used for soft metal embossing.”
On her website, Mora says the work itself serves to show the parallels between our mind and the paper. The expressive and powerful, yet fragile and delicate, characteristics of each. The way they can both be transformative in many ways, but often begin bare and unassuming — these similarities between the mind and paper are showcased and outlined in the art and its description.
Just like the mind, how the paper objects with deep reds, stark whites and dramatic shadows is beautiful. Still, paper can be torn and manipulated easily, and much like the mind, it doesn’t last forever.
“Paper Weight” is open to the public, free for students to view and will be running Aug. 29, 2018 through Jan. 20, 2019. It can be seen at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, open Thursday through Sunday from 11 a.m. until 5 p.m. and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. until 8 p.m. It costs $5 for adults and $3 for seniors.
