El Nafeza papermaking
Arriving by the metro, we get off at Mar Girgis station, and walk towards the street where Darb 1718 gallery is located. As we walk past a Coptic church, after we exit the metro, we are greeted by a military officer that escorts us towards our final destination. I think the street was closed at the moment, but because we were with our Egyptian friend, we were allowed through.
El Nafeza teaches young girls and boys how to make paper. They are using rice straws that are left over after the rice harvest.
In Cairo, right now, there is a cloud of black smoke that is coming from the burning of the rice straws. It is a terrible problem because there is an abundance of rice straw that is discarded after the harvest. Through the creativity of Dr. Mohamed Abou El Naga, the founder of El Nafeza, some of the rice straw is being reused and providing an income for young Egyptians. Many of the youth that were working today, are deaf, and it is a great way for these girls and boys to work.
The facilities is quite large, and has been around for more than 4 years.
The process of papermaking begins with the pure rice straw. It is boiled in a large vat, run by a medium sized buta gas tank. The rice straw burns for about an hour and a half. Then it is cleaned with water. Next, it is moved to another room. They use a washing machine, that then cleans it further and helps blend the rice straw into the pulp.
Afterwards, the pulp goes into another large container and waits until it will be used. There are large tanks that the colored dye and pulp will then be poured into. The girls then take screens and dip them into the pulp and colored dye mixture. They wait a moment, and let the excess waters drain from the screen. They use a plastic scraper to put around the edges of the paper, to help it come off the screen easier.
The final part of the process is placing the screen on the cement wall. The paper then sticks to the surface of the cement. Holding the screen tight against the wall, a sponge is used to push the air out from underneath the screen and paper, so that the paper will dry flat against the cement wall. Even more excess water and dye drips down the wall.
There is no sizing that is used in this paper.
They have a multitude of products available. It appears that there is no end to the possibilities of products or designs that they might use. According to the wife of Dr. Mohamed Abou El Naga, this facility is the only one of its kind in the entire Middle East. This is rather surprising to me. The Arabs brought paper from Egypt to the Western world, and yet now there is almost no paper of this sort being produced here. There is so much potential for paper to be made from various sources.
As a printmaker, I am very interested in papermaking. There is a direct relationship between the image and the paper one chooses. I have been using Japanese papers throughout the years, due to its weight and durability. I am hoping in the future, that I will be able to utilize the papers at El Nafeza and to work with them to do some printmaking/papermaking workshops.
I think that one thing that is still a challenge for this facility, is that the paper ends up being too expensive for the Egyptian population. However, it is so important to have a Egyptian-made product that supports the Egyptian community.
I look forward to seeing how my prints will work on this paper, and the possibilities of how this paper can be used in the future.
To learn more information about El Nafeza, please check out their website at http://www.elnafeza.com
