Ulrike Siebe, Germany
Since last summer I have had a new home: the city of Leipzig, a perfect place for booklovers.

Before World War II, nearly all German-language books were published and printed here. Today the city hosts one of the two
major annual book fairs in Germany. Also one of the two National Libraries can be found here, including a collection of artists'
books and historic paper samples. For the bookmarks project I wanted to do something reflecting that.

I started researching about paper and was surprised to read that the library received an important part of their collection from
the little town of Greiz where I grew up. Apparently there had been a "German paper museum" and when it closed in the 1960s
the collection went to Leipzig. I had known that there was a paper mill from 1591 until the 1990s in my old home town, but as I
only moved there in the 90s the museum was gone and the paper mill had closed down.

Thinking about the connections between my old and my new home, I became aware that the same small river Weisse Elster also
runs through both places. I found a hiking guide, published in Leipzig, by someone that had been walking along the Weisse Elster
from Leipzig upwards. The little boats are made of its pages. On them I printed photo details of paper rolls and stacks that were left
in the paper mill in Greiz after it was closed down. Then I added photographic details of the water surface of the Weisse Elster, taken
at different places in Leipzig.

Ironically, while I was doing the boats Germany was hit by bad floods in many places, so people had to travel the streets by boat. At
that time the small river Weisse Elster became much bigger itself, and my old home town Greiz was flooded, probably including the
old paper mill - as it was situated directly at a branch of the river.

• www.ulrikesiebe.de
• http://ulrikesiebe.blogspot.com
• ulrike.siebe@gmx.de

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