Papercamp 5

Saturday I travelled up to London to attend Papercamp 5, organised by Alexandra Deschamps-Sonsino and held at the St Bride Foundation.

Papercamp is described as “A conference about paper that really wants to be a village fete” and that is a great description.

There were seven talks throughout the day with topics ranging from the history of citrus fruit packaging, through breaking world records and riso printing, to the joy of sending postcards. Each talk was different and they were all thoroughly engaging and thought provoking.

Hand printed orange wrapping paper or ‘citrus ephemera’, from Micha Nicheva and a riso printed bookmark from Antonia Stringer

Also in attendance was Matt Martin of The Photocopy Club who brought his travelling photography zine library and worksop along for people to experience and make zines in. I gave Matt one of my misprinted Bath Boules 2026 zines to add to the library. (I chose the wrong printing method when getting the proof copies printed, so they look like they have been photocopied. I fixed that mistake for the released version.)

A couple of pages from my ‘misprinted’ Bath Boules zine

There were other practical activities to do to. Each table was provided with craft supplies and tasked with producing collage letters of the alphabet, inspired by the font, Sabrin-AI, from French artist, Etienne Mineur, used for Papercamp 5’s branding. Not everyone stuck to the brief, but by the end of the day a complete alphabet was produced. (Unfortunately I didn’t make any images of the finished letters. Update: Alex has posted this Instagram reel of the finished letters.)

Dane Whitehurst from Burgopak, as part of his talk, had us all have a go at making a small version of their very first product, a pop-out, or sliding, CD case. Much hilarity, or maybe confusion, ensued as everyone tried to follow along with the instructions. Remarkably quite a number of us managed to end up with properly working examples.

My finished Burgopak sliding mini CD case

Amongst the things I took with me yesterday was my Canon Selphy QX20 printer, which I used to produce prints of Alex and each of the speakers, and then gave them. Quite a few people asked about the printer, which lead to some great conversations about printing photos and journaling.

A page from my notes showing a Selphy QX20 print and a small piece of ‘citrus ephemera’

All in all I had a brilliant time at Papercamp 5, so a massive “Thank You” to Alex, the speakers and all the other attendees, for making it such a great day. I definitely plan to attend next year’s event, to be held on 18th September 2027, and might even consider submitting a talk proposal around freeing photos from your camera roll on to paper.

Hand drawn postcard by Aaron Straup Cope

Further Reading