Papergirl ist kommunikativ. Papergirl verbindet. Auch international. Den Beweis dafür zeigt die PersonalPapergirlStory von Luiza aus Sao Paulo, die uns 2014 über Facebook schrieb, nachdem sie von dem Projekt auf ihrer Timeline erfahren hatte: Sie sei gerade in Europa unterwegs und wolle uns besuchen, um uns zu unterstützen. Und das hat sie dann auch gemacht. Es war einfach toll, das Gefühl, dass man sich durch ein Kunstprojekt international kennenlernt und unterstützt.

Als wir sie fragten, ob sie etwas für unsere neue Kategorie „MyPersonalPapergirlStory“ schreiben mag, war sie sofort dabei. Und hier ist ihr Artikel:

PaperGirling in Hannover

When a inspiring project became a real experience after 5 years of a deep deep love

The first time I heard about the Paper Girl project was in 2009 and I was studying for my college final presentation, for my Graphic Design graduation. It was a research about the trend of Collaborative behave and the Paper Girl Project and the way they collect, show and spread art makes me fall in love.

Actually, in 2011 I tried to organize a Paper Girl São Paulo version, the city where I live. I was really surprised when I figure out that no city in Brazil already did a Paper Girl, not even once! I talked with other friends about the idea and we organized a group of interested friends but, unfortunately, the things didn’t work well because of a few structural details. The project we builded trying to reproduce the Paper Girls São Paulo needed some budget to get done, so we found a sponsor and did it anyway, but using the name of the Paper Girls only as an importante reference and inspiration. (here are some pictures of the production / here are some pictures of the distribuition / here a video of the action (unfortunately, without subtitles)

In fact, the group that made the no-paper-girl action got so exited about the experience of make real the first action that we decided to create a Collective, the RAW Collective (Coletivo CRU in Portuguese. find more about it at coletivocru.co). With the RAW we worked for more then 4 years organizing lots of things related to the cycle culture and appropriation of public spaces. I’ve really had changed after the RAW in my live, and all of this because of what the Paper Girls around the world inspired on me.

Then something unexpected happen to me, I moved to London for six months for study at some design courses. It was my first time in Europe and my plan was to explore around as much as I could. And so did I. One day, when I was planning a backpack cycle trip, I saw on my facebook timeline: “Open Call for paper girl Hannover”. And I thought: “I will go”. I didn’t have any idea about where was this Hannover city but I was going there for sure. I started to make contact with the Paper Girls Hannover Team and sent this email:

Hello PaperGirl-Hannover Team!

I hope you are all great.

My name is Luiza, I’m from Brazil but I’m living at London by now.

I saw the flyer about your open call to the PaperGirl 2014 and I get so excited about it that a wrote a comment in your blog sharing my happiness about the possibility of making part of it. (Than I realized that my english at the comment was so poor and full of errors that I decided to send this email. lol. I’m sorry about that!)

So, I’m in love with the PaperGirl project since 2009, when I discovered it researching about collaborative projects. I really want to make part of it this year with you guys.

I’ll be in Germany in August so it’s totally possible for me to be around and useful for anything you need. So I want to understand better how can I help and the right dates of everything (the production of the materials, the exhibition, the distributing day… everything.)

I hope we can do something together this year!

Best,

Than we organized a meeting in Hannover to discuss what to do. I was so exited about be part of a real Paper-Girl Project that I wrote ideas for our meeting almost all the road to Hannover.

For my surprise, there was a journal interview going on at the same day of our meeting. The point was that the Paper-Girl Hannover didn’t get many art products for 2014 edition, but we were almost closing partnership with a culture festival, the Fuchsbau Festival.

We proposed to organize an artistic dynamic, with paper, inks, pens, rubber cutting and other stuffs. It was a totally successful day (despite the rain at the afternoon) my brain got a bit tired because of translating my impressions about Paper Girl all day long, in english, for germans. But my tiredness was so much smaller than my happiness after my Paper-Girl day with Zarah, one of the Hannovers team.

I was recording all my european trip with a Go-Pro camera and, even not being a video-maker, a did a short clip of the Paper-Girl action at the Fuchsia Festival 2014.

Personally, Paper Girl is more then the art of giving art. For me, it is about kindness and generosity. It is a project that promotes the art and the artists spontaneously. More then this, it is a tool to communicate with art with anyone, does not matter gender, age or any kind of orientation and beside this, it is a tool for horizontal access to culture and contemporary art, the art inside and out of the gallery at the same time. The art everywhere, from any artist, to everybody. How to don’t fall in love? How to don’t feel yourself inspired with it?

Was an indescribable pleasure to be part of Paper-Girl Hannover 2014, a project that always was my personal icon of art project, the project the made born my lovely RAW collective and made me travel to German, the country where the project started, to finally be part of the super fantastic Paper Girl Project.
One more curious thing about all of it is that even my couchsurfer hoster in Hannover, the lovely Esther, sent a poster remixing hers and mine productions, making a hybrid collaborative design work. Such a sophisticated concept of design now a day! This is art, dud! ❤

I was eating, breathing and drinking the paper-girl at those beautiful weeks of my life, even more then the others 5 years before, since I started to follow the paper-girl philosophys.

Many thanks to the Paper-Girl Hannover team. I miss you, girls! Many thanks for everybody that keeps the project alive. You are the best!