Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone

Exhibition identity and publication design for Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone, a touring exhibition at CCA Derry~Londonderry, Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre and Ormston House, Limerick, curated by Alissa Kleist and Matt Packer.

The exhibition took its title from a 1994 book by Belfast-based science fiction writer Ian McDonald. In Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone, McDonald describes a young graphic design student, Ethan Ring, who is able to create images that bypass rational thought and control the mind of the viewer. The ability of Ethan Ring’s images to induce tears or ecstasy, to heal, and even kill people attracts the interests of legal, military, governmental, and commercial forces, who all see the opportunities of harnessing this power for their own ends. As well as being a story of art’s capacities to change people’s emotional and physical behaviour, the book is a story of the artist’s struggle to manage these responsibilities.

The exhibition design was created in response to the heightened and almost toxic colours of the show, and the sometimes disconcerting use of media and material. The materials used in the publication and exhibition posters reflect this further; the publication cover features a one-colour screen print on holographic paper stock, as well as a printed acetate bookmark. The title treatment is inspired by the meaning of the phrase itself, the cut paper that the book consists of and the circularity of the childhood game it references.