Tistou’s Tea Party Preparation: An Artistic Inquiry into Material Transformation and Internal Growth

Tistou's Tea Party is a symbolic intervention which is taking place during the Gallery Bangsaen Festival (March 6-15, 2026). During the intervention, participants will be invited to write down their grievances, then process the paper into a collective sculpture. After ten days, the art will be dismantled and converted into RDF. It’s a recurring ritual: whenever negative emotions pile up, we can transform them into art, and eventually, into energy. This exposition details the preparation phase — testing the feasibility of the symbolic act, refining it, and observing its effects through self-experimentation. The method of study is practice-as-research. Data collection involves intermittent photography and field notes. I found that it is possible to shred the papers, soak in hot water, blend into pulp, and mix with tapioca starch, joint compound, water, food color, and scent (if desire). The processed paper pulp, which feels like very thick cream soup, can be squeezed on nylon mosquito net to evoke the feeling of a flowering tree. During the whole experiment, I also experienced a profound sense of “Quirky Euphoria” and a sense of agency, that it is possible to process my negative emotions into a creative act.