Paper Value

The Work of Yuken Teruya

North, Laurence ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6578-1771 (2025) Paper Value. In: Illustration and the paper artefact, 4 - 7 September 2025, Falmouth University, Cornwall, UK.

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Text (Transcript and slides from the presentation for The Paper Artifact Conference, Falmouth University, August 2025) Transcript and slides from the presentation for The Paper Artifact Conference.pdf - Presentation Download (369kB) | Preview

Abstract / Summary

Paper Value: The work of Yuken Teruya

This paper asks: How can Yuken Teruya’s art allow us to construct critical frameworks that subvert forces of desire through a mode of revealing.

For around decade Teruya has worked with paper in varying found forms. The paper in Teruya’s work plays with paper’s duality of being, it is on the one hand powerful and enduring in an abstract sense (legal documents, bank notes) and, also powerless and disposable in other forms (tissues, wrapping). As a material and as a subject it is also mutable, malleable and surprisingly durable.
When thinking of Teruya’s artwork, it is important to bear in mind the common phrase that refers to the “paper value” of things - “paper value” operates as an abstract notion of worth, in tension with the real or exchangeable value of things. The inherent contradictions within the “paper value” of things is the abstract power of paper that Teruya’s work discusses. For over a decade Teruya has produced work that relies on intricate cutting and reforming of found paper artefacts, whose power is the ability to generate forces of desire, for example; bank notes, newspapers and product packaging. The cuts allow the paper to be reformed into objects that then provoke the audience to re-value the abstract, symbolic and material worth of the paper’s value. This paper explores how Teruya’s work cuts both physically and metaphorically into powerful paper artefacts as a mode of revealing that effectively defaces their illusion of desirability.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Yuken Teruya, Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology, Dan Hicks, Monuments Will Fall
Subjects:	Art History & Theory Philosophy & Psychology
Department:	Falmouth School of Art
Depositing User:	Laurence North
Date Deposited:	25 Sep 2025 14:58
Last Modified:	25 Sep 2025 14:58
URI:	https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6179

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