The first Fresh Press Emirates event took place during the first week of March 2024 on the Abu Dhabi campus with a papermaking workshop and lecture offered by Drew Matott from Peace Paper Project, and an exhibition bringing together various courses from CACE. In addition to the generous support of various departments across the university, the exhibition was held in collaboration with the following individuals and respective courses they were teaching in spring 2024:

From Art:

Naz Shahrokh (AVA 310 Drawing I)

Ioannis Papavasileiou (AVA 340 Photography I)

Katarzyna Dzikowska (AVA 366 Book Structures)

From Design:

Oorvi Sharma (AID 311 Drawing for Designers)

Tala Atrouni and Tina Sleiman (AGD 452 Packaging Design)

David Howarth (ART 497 Letterpress)

The Fresh Press Enterprise is an initiative (funded by the Institute of Social and Economic Research ISER, and led by Tina Sleiman, Eric Benson, and Fatme Al Anouti) that aims to redefine the Emirates’ specialty paper industry by crafting renourishing artisanal paper using fiber from seasonal agricultural waste. It is based on the innovative and inspiring model offered by Fresh Press Paper, a studio running in parallel to a sustainable student farm at the University of Illinois, which has been handmaking paper out of agricultural waste since 2012.

https://www.freshpress.studio/projects

https://www.zu.ac.ae/main/en/research/iser/current-projects