Enfilade

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As noted at Fabula:

Découper suivant les pointillés / Cut along the Dotted Line

Images manufacturées à manipuler, XVIIIe–XXIe siècles

Craft Practices around Manufactured Pictures, 18th–21st Centuries

Organized by Johanna Daniel and Hélène Valance

Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Paris, 31 March — 1 April 2026

Proposals due by 30 September 2025

Cut, folded, pierced, embroidered, glued: a material as fragile as it is ubiquitous, paper is a medium allowing for the expression of multiple skills. These manipulations free the printed image from flatness, while enhancing its materiality. From the plane surfaces of the ‘constructions’ plates marketed by the Pellerin printing house in Epinal at the end of the 19th century, for instance, emerged three-dimensional models of airplanes, of Noah’s Ark, or of the Eiffel Tower, bringing a whole world to life. Shadow and transparency effects used in miniature theaters, paper folding, coloring, or collage activities : all these manipulations multiply the potential of paper as a material and, at the same time, of the image. These pictures are not simply produced as images to be contemplated, but they require their audiences to actively engage in the realization of their full potential.

This symposium will focus on the triangular relationship between image, paper, and manipulation. It will consider pictures manufactured and designed to be handled, constructed, and augmented by their audiences. It will also examine amateur craft practices based on serially or mass-produced pictures, whether or not these are meant for such practices (such as ephemeras turned into scrapbooks, hand-colored prints, or embroidered religious images and postcards).

Although these images and techniques are widespread (Hans Christian Andersen, for example, left a large collection of amateur cut-outs), they have only been the subject of occasional academic research. Art and material culture historians have mostly focused on the works of renowned artists, such as Max Ernst or Pierre Alechinsky. A few recent studies have addressed anonymous works, particularly collage and scrapbooking (Garvey 2012, Sebayashi 2016, Elliott, Gowrley, and Etga 2019, Gowrley 2024). Paper as a material has received a renewed attention (Laroque and Lee 2016, Laroque and Pierrard 2020, De Mayer, Kaminska, and Thibault 2024). However, gestures surrounding pictures have so far been relatively rarely taken into consideration (Kisiel 2021-23).

This conference will explore the practices developed around a variety of pictures produced in series or on a massive scale, from the 18th to the 21st centuries. From backlit optical views marketed in Europe in the 1760s to the cutting, folding, and coloring activities circulated in children’s magazines today, via religious imagery and advertising materials, we will examine the interactions between paper and other materials (fabric, cardboard, wood), tools (scissors, needles, punches), as well as the physical environment (light, wind, fire). What does the materiality of paper do to the image? We will question the gestures and know-how involved in the production of these works, examining how these techniques were and are acquired and transmitted (school, home), as well as the expectations regarding the users’ skills. The conference will analyze the constraints and negotiations imposed by the articulation between mass- or serially-produced pictures, and individual practices. What forms and spaces of autonomy are allowed by these manipulations? What gestures, artistic and social practices, and uses of images are visible here? It will consider the techniques and networks of production and commercialization of these printed images in the general landscape of picture-making: what cultural, ideological, and economic networks are at play here?

Proposals may address one or several of the following questions, without being limited to these suggestions:

Designing printed images to be manipulated

Prints such as cutouts, fashion engravings, or optical views began to be produced specifically to be cut out, glued, and augmented with different materials in the late 17th century. With the industrialization of imagery in the 19th century, this type of production expanded dramatically. How did and do the designers of these images anticipate the future interventions of consumers in their creative process? How does this impact the way they drew and engraved? Do these images allow for free, autonomous uses? From 19th century scrap sheets to contemporary youth magazines, who are the designers of paper models? What specific skills do they demonstrate?

Feasibility and technical skill

Although small and large constructions from the Pellerin house in Epinal were inexpensive, they were far from being within everyone’s reach: they required a great deal of skill, and their production relied on the acquisition of advanced manual competences. How was the expertise surrounding these images passed on? What theories of education or domestic economy accompany them? How have they evolved since the 18th century? How much individual creativity is involved, and conversely, what constraints are imposed by models and instructions?

Circulation and social interactions

Paper crafts are remarkably mobile, crossing socio-cultural and geographical boundaries—and even temporal ones, despite their often ephemeral nature. We will focus on the joint circulation of images and practices related to paper: Who are the actors of these production and circulation networks? What is their general economic environment? Which images circulate in which formats? Which specific audiences do these images address, and are they diverted for other uses? What types of social relationships developed around these practices?

Conservation, transmission, and digitization of images to be manipulated

Considered as popular productions and classified as ephemera, pictures designed to be manipulated have been imperfectly preserved, because they have been of less interest to fine arts institutions than to collectors. However, there are important collections (the Musée de l’Image in Épinal, the dépôt légal at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Papier Museum in Düren) which pose specific problems of inventory, cataloguing, and public outreach around these collections. We are particularly interested in the challenges of collecting “manipulated” objects alongside printing plates that have not been altered in any way. We would like to interrogate public outreach activities around these productions (print reissuing, pedagogical workshops, contemporary creation). We also invite proposals for papers on digitization issues, which may especially question the relationship between flat images and volume.

This is an international interdisciplinary symposium. We welcome contributions from various fields (art history, education sciences, design, material and cultural history, communication sciences, or literature) and areas of specialization (with no regional restriction, from the 18th century to the present day). The call is also open to curators and conservators, collectors, contemporary creators, publishers, and professional users. Proposals may take several forms including individual 20-minute presentations, practical workshops, interviews, or panel discussions. Proposals, written in French or English and under 450 words, must be submitted by 30 September 2025. They should be accompanied by a brief bio-bibliographical note and sent to helene.valance@inha.fr and johanna.p.daniel@gmail.com.

Scientific Committee
Manuel Charpy, Laboratoire InVisu, CNRS
Pauline Chevalier, Université de Tours
Ariane Fennetaux, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle – Paris 3
Marine Kisiel, Palais Galliera
Séverine Montigny, Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris
Aurélie Petiot, Université Paris Nanterre

b i b l i o g r a p h y

Audin, Marius, Marshall, Alan, Moglia, Bernadette, Ephemera : les imprimés de tous les jours, 1880–1939, Lyon, Musée de l’imprimerie, 2001.

Brust, Beth Wagner, The Amazing Paper Cuttings of Hans Christian Andersen, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1994.

De Maeyer, Juliette, Kaminska, Aleksandra, and Thibault, Ghislain, Histoires matérielles du papier, 2024, online : https://doi.org/10.13098/infoclio.ch-lb-0012

Dolan, Alice, « An Adorned Print: Print Culture, Female Leisure and the Dissemination of Fashion in France and England, around 1660–1779 », V&A Online Journal, no 3, 2011, online : .

Elliott, Patrick, Freya Gorwley, and Yuval Etgar, Cut & Paste: 400 Years of Collage, Edimbourg, National galleries of Scotland, 2019.

Garvey, Ellen Gruber, Writing with Scissors: American Scrapbooks from the Civil War to the Harlem Renaissance, Oxford,‎ Oxford University Press, 2012.

Gobbé-Mévellec, Euriell, and Hamaide, Eléonore, « “Déployer sa fragilité” : quand le pop-up transforme les petites mains en grands lecteurs », Elfe XX–XXI, n°13, 2024, online: http://journals.openedition.org/elfe/6868

Gowrley, Freya, Fragmentary Forms: A New History of Collage, Princeton University Press, 2024.

Han, Huirong, Revolutionary Chinese paper cuts from the Newark Museum, Newark, Newark Museum, 2015.

Ingold, Tim, Making: Anthropology, Archaeology, Art and Architecture, Abingdon-on-Thames 2013.

Jammes, André. Papiers dominotés : trait d’union entre l’imagerie populaire et les papiers peints : France, 1750–1820. Paris, Éditions des Cendres, 2010.

Kisiel, Marine, et al., « Gestes d’Images » seminar, laboratoire InVisu-INHA, 2021–2023. Online : https://gestesdimages.inha.fr/

Kopylov, Marc, and Jammes André. Papiers dominotés français : ou l’art de revêtir d’éphémères couvertures colorées : livres et brochures entre 1750 et 1820, Paris, Éditions des Cendres, 2012.

Laroque, Claude, and Valérie Lee (eds.), Papiers en volume, traditions asiatiques et occidentales (actes de la journée d’étude du 4 novembre 2016), site de l’HiCSA, 2018. Online :

Laroque, Claude, and Maryse Pierrard (eds.), Histoire du papier et de la papeterie : actualités de la recherche II (Actes de la journée d’étude du 13 octobre) Online : 2020) https://hicsa.pantheonsorbonne.fr/sites/default/files/2023-09/livre_laroque_02-2.pdf

Laroque, Claude, and Maryse Pierrard (eds.), Les Papiers filigranés de la période 1830–1950 (Actes de la journée d’étude du 8 octobre 2021), Paris, sites de l’HiCSA et de l’ENS. Online : https://hicsa.pantheonsorbonne.fr/sites/default/files/2023-09/livre_laroque_02-2.pdf

Lerch, Dominique, et al, Les Images de dévotion en Europe XVIe–XXIe siècle : Une Précieuse Histoire, Beauchesne, 2021.

Le Thomas, Claire, Racines populaires du cubisme : pratiques ordinaires de création et art savant, Dijon, les Presses du réel, 2016.

Magnien, Gabriel, Canivets : découpures et silhouettes. Lyon: Imprimeries réunies, 1947.

Mainardi, Patricia, Another World: Nineteenth-Century Illustrated Print Culture, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2017

Montigny, Séverine « Les grands magasins parisiens, fabriques du petit consommateur ». L’échauguette, carnet de recherche de la BHVP, 27 mai 2025, online : https://doi.org/10.58079/140r4

Oelschlägel, Petra, and Anna Arnold, Aus Papier!, Dortmund, Verlag Kettler, 2021.

Pelachaud, Gaëlle, Livres animés : Du papier au numérique, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2011.

Plunkett, John, « Light work : Feminine Leisure and the Making of Transparencies », in Hadjiafxendi Kyriaki and Zakreski Patricia (eds.), Crafting the Woman Professional in the Long Nineteenth Century, Artistry and Industry in Britain, Burlington, Ashgate, 2013, p. 45‑67.

Rickards Maurice, Twyman Michael, De Beaumont Sally, and Tanner Amoret, The Encyclopedia of Ephemera: a Guide to the Fragmentary Documents of Everyday Life for the Collector, Curator, and Historian, New York, Routledge, 2000.

Sadion, Martine (ed.), 14–18 L’Enfant découpait des images, Épinal, Musée de l’image, 2014.

Schneider, Malou (ed.), Des Mondes de papier: l’imagerie populaire de Wissembourg, Strasbourg, Musées de la ville de Strasbourg, 2010.

Sebayashi, Nathalie, « Appropriation par le collage : Le cas de l’album factice », Histoire de l’art, n° 78-1, 2016, p. 71–85.

Taveneaux, Evelyn, La piété en dentelles : les images de dévotion et leurs dentelles, 1830–1910, Nancy, Presses universitaires de Nancy, 1992.

Tucker, Susan, Katherine Ott, and Patricia Butler (eds.), The Scrapbook in American Life, Temple University Press, 2006.