This project focuses on experimenting with materials and structure—exploring how photographic images can move beyond flat prints and become something interactive and dimensional. This series of hand fans explores different photographic processes by turning them into sculptural objects. I used cyanotype, lumen prints, and silver-based darkroom paper to create photograms of flowers and plants and incorporating extracts that alter the chemical process of the paper such as lime juice, and hydrogen peroxide. Each liquid material creates a different chemical reaction while the subject stays consistent resulting in shifting tones, contrast, and texture. Using a multitude of substrates, the fans are printed on darkroom paper, fabric and cotton rag papers, which changes how the image absorbs and holds chemicals and subsequently the details. I chose to create four different styles of folding fans, to play with ideas of abstraction and others that play with representation.

Hand fans have a long history as both functional and decorative objects, dating back thousands of years to places like Japan, China, and Ancient Egypt, where they were originally made from materials such as feathers, leaves, silk, and paper, attached to simple handles or folding structures. Early on, they were used for religious dances to the gods and as symbols of status, but they were also used for cooling and often decorated with painted imagery, calligraphy, or intricate patterns. As fans spread to Europe, especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, they became more elaborate. They were used not only as accessories but also as tools for social communication through gesture and movement. Today, hand fans are still used for cooling, performance, and cultural traditions, but they are also collected and appreciated as designed objects and artworks. My aim was to produce a series of contemporary hand fans that engage with merging my photographic process with my sculptural practice, exploring how a photograph can exist as more than a flat image by transforming it into a physical object. The work becomes both an image and an object, holding traces of place, process, and personal experience.