Paper Room

Living in an apartment in a city for the first time, without much outdoor space, has been an eye-opener. There’s something about living inside built environments all the time that seems to dampen the urge to create. Outside, in parks and front yards and dusty roads, you’re free to make marks—scribble in the dirt, draw makeshift games on the ground, make patterns with leaves. The world is your canvas. Inside though? But your couch and that fancy rug are completely off limits (or so my roommates say). But isn’t making marks, creating and crafting a part of what makes us human? We have created a ‘right place’ for everything—draw in your sketchbook, lay down plastic before you paint. We’re boxed in by our own rules. It’s constricting and I feel it’s why we feel trapped in our modern spaces.

I wanted to shake that off, to see if living in a space that invites spontaneous creativity could actually make me feel more liberated, more empowered. I couldn’t really fill my room with sand (sadly) so I did the next best thing: I covered my entire room in paper. Everywhere. I scattered pencils and markers around too.

For three weeks, I am now living in this paper-wrapped room, letting my thoughts and natural urges to create and make marks flow—just to see what happens when the barriers are gone and the world is once again a canvas.