Frenchtown Scroll / sTo Len

Medium: Print with Sumi Ink on Canvas
 
The ancient Japanese printmaking technique called suminagashi, or floating ink, involves creating a floating painting on the surface of water and printing from it with paper. sTo Len’s version, called tsunaminagashi, involves printing from a row boat on polluted waterways such as NYC’s Newtown Creek. 
 
sTo Len’s work examines our relationship to water, our disconnect to waste, and the entanglement of identity and place. The ancient-Japanese printing process used to create Frenchtown Scroll creates an intimacy of record-keeping through tender touching, inking, rubbing, and dipping. sTo Len’s process creates an unlikely meditative space for acknowledging the magnitude of human imprint and impact on our environment. 
 
Highlighting environmental, social, and racial injustices, Frenchtown Scroll asks us to question the costs of our actions and their links to control, consumption, and profit. The work gives visibility to these issues to inspire change through beauty and poetic interventions.