IMC 2024 Echizen submission

The title indicates this print was prepared for the International Mokuhanga Conference (IMC) 2024, with "Echizen" referencing the washi paper tradition of Fukui Prefecture. The triennial IMC gathers water-based woodblock practitioners from across the world, and its print exchanges and exhibitions typically invite participants to respond to a regional material or theme — Echizen washi, with its long kozo fibers, dimensional stability under repeated dampening, and capacity to receive pigment cleanly across multiple impressions, is a natural substrate for such a submission. As a contemporary mokuhanga work, the sheet would have been produced from hand-cut blocks using water-based pigments, nori paste, and a baren, with registration achieved through kento marks. Strand's wider practice is shaped by her doctoral research at Akademia Sztuk Pieknych in Krakow, which positioned mokuhanga at the intersection of studio practice and academic inquiry; her participation in IMC exchanges reflects an ongoing engagement with the international community of practitioners that has formed around the medium outside Japan over the past two decades.