American Swedish Institute
American Swedish Institute Paper Dialogues
After a temporary closure of the museum galleries and the Turnblad Mansion, the American Swedish Institute (ASI) is reopening its door for visitors to see their latest exhibition, Paper Dialogues: The Dragon and Our Stories, that explores the parallels between Nordic and Chinese culture through the art of paper cutting.
Paper Dialogues stems from a cross-cultural collaboration over 10 years ago between two renowned paper cutting artists, Karen "Bit" Vejle of Denmark and professor Xiaoguang Qiao of China. Their partnership first began when Bit traveled to Beijing to learn more about the origins of paper cutting and met Qiao. While the two never directly communicated with each other due to a language barrier, the two artists shared a silent dialogue together through paper cutting.
“The collaboration has been a learning process. We haven’t been able to talk directly to one another, but we have decoded each other and created a different kind of dialogue,” Bit has said about the partnership. “I feel that I have seen his heart—that we look into each other’s soul. It has been fantastic to get to know another papercutting artist, a different culture and a different country like this.”
Exhibition manager Erin Stromgren says after Bit’s trip to China, Qiao traveled to Norway to visit Bit which resulted in the decision to collaborate. “He did his piece and she did hers. It was inspired by the dialogue that they were having in and around their craft, their art, and as mentioned the dragon,” Stromgren says.
From their first encounter, they decided that the mystical creature, the dragon, which has representation in both of their cultures, would be symbolic in their works. In Scandinavia, the dragon is most often associated with the Viking period and the Middle Ages. Bit’s work—inspired by Norse mythology—is seen throughout a sequence of seven dragon eggs made of white paper that tell stories of Scandinavians and their society from the past and future.
Qiao created a 30-foot long, multi-colored dragon that draws from the Chinese dragon, called long. Stromgren says long is a prominent figure throughout Chinese folklore as well as festivals and celebrations. One side of the dragon symbolizes chaos and renewal, and the other is a change in time in what Qiao sees in Chinese culture. “For him, it was a duality to his piece, being able to view the front and the back; he uses that in two ways,” Stromgren says.
Since its first appearance in China, Paper Dialogues has been exhibited in Scandinavia, Seattle, and at the ArtHouse Jersey of Jersey Island, located in the channel islands between the United Kingdom and France. There, Bit and Qiao shared their skills of paper cutting and held a workshop with seven local Jersey artists. Of the artists, Emma Ried and Layla May Arthur–who was a student when she attended the workshop–added their work to the dialogue, telling their stories through their own paper works.
Additionally, Paper Dialogues will be joined at ASI by Thermal, an installation of form, movement, and sound featuring the work of Twin Cities artist Kim Heidkamp alongside ARENA Dances performing the work of Mathew Janczewski, and Our Dragon Story, ASI’s newest Family Gallery installation designed with local students.
While the exhibition is up, Stromgren hopes that people feel inspired to create their own artwork and contemplate the dialogue within the pieces from around the world. She says Bit is passionate about sharing the art of paper cutting and hopes the exhibitions inspire others to try. “It’s a really accessible art. There's no right or wrong way,” Stromgren says.
Paper Dialogues: The Dragon and Our Stories runs from Feb. 19–July 10.
