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Blank paper and fabric were first used as means of protest, as far as I know, by the anarchist group PROVO during the protests in Amsterdam in the 1960s. PROVO was an anti-authoritarian, ecological counterculture movement that organised demonstrations in the city centre, often holding white sheets of fabric. Their campaigns advocated free love, access to the contraceptive pill, making central Amsterdam accessible only to bicycles and pedestrians, pollution charge for cars, reforming rigid working-day, and other demands.

 

More recently, blank sheets of paper appeared in Hong Kong following in the footsteps of the Umbrella Movement during the 2020 protests against the introduction of the Hong Kong National Security Law. After authorities criminalised the use of certain words and slogans, activists, many of them students of Hong Kong University, responded by holding up blank banners and blank A4 pages.

 

In February 2022, after Russia invaded Ukraine, anti-war protests took place in Moscow’s Red Square, where individuals held blank signs and A4 pages. Similar actions took place in other cities, often as solo protests due to restrictions on public gatherings in Russia. The protesters were quickly arrested.

 

In November 2022, the A4 pages of paper appeared as part of the "White Paper Movement" in China against the government’s “Zero-COVID” policy. Protesters initially called for an end to the draconian restrictions, which expanded to include demands for the resignation of Xi Jinping. The blank paper functioned as a silent but powerful act of dissent; confronting the authorities while avoiding the risk of arrest for displaying prohibited slogans.

 

In the UK, in 2022-2023, blank sheets of paper were used by individuals as a form of anti-monarchy protest in Parliament Square in London, as well as in Scotland and Cornwall. In 2025, blank sheets of paper were also used in London by Youth Demand during pro-Palestinian protests.

 

1.) Blank Sheet of Paper in Philosophy and Religion (Emptiness, Fullness and Silence)

 

On a philosophical level, the blank piece of paper leads me to questions about our world and the meaning of existence. It brings to mind Zen Buddhist ideas of emptiness and fullness, and how these concepts relate to the dialogue between Asian and European traditions, such as emptiness as integral to being, versus a void devoid of meaning.

 

I am also reminded of medieval Christian paintings depicting holy shrouds: angels holding a large white cloth, sometimes depicting an image of Christ, sometimes left blank. I have enjoyed looking at the blank shrouds, exploring the folds of the fabric, and have often found myself pondering whether the comfort I feel in blankness is akin to a spiritual contemplation.

 

A blank sheet or page can also point to what cannot be said, because language cannot fully articulate it, as per Ludwig Wittgenstein’s ideas. In this sense, the blankness and silence becomes a form of communication. The blank page seen as refusing to explain itself.

 

2.) Blank Sheet of Paper in Art and Politics

 

– Protest and Survival

 

During Oscar Wilde’s imprisonment for “gross indecency” 1895-1897, he was permitted one piece of paper per day for writing. Under such conditions, the page ceased to be a neutral surface and  became a precious object: a scarce and carefully measured space in which to think, to remember, and to communicate something vital.

 

When words must be rationed and every sentence carries greater weight, writing slows down and becomes deliberate. Each word must justify its existence, and each thought must be examined several times before it is allowed onto the page. In this way, the limitation sharpens attention, forcing the writer to distinguish between what is merely interesting and what is truly necessary.

 

Writing, then, becomes not merely an act of expression but an act of survival; an attempt to preserve identity, dignity, and inner freedom under conditions designed to erase them. For Wilde, whose life and work were grounded in language, wit, aesthetics and freedom, the enforced scarcity of paper was not simply a practical constraint but a profound intellectual violence. Yet it was also within this constraint that reflection, endurance, and moral reckoning could take shape. The single page becomes a site and means of resistance: small and yet charged with the task of holding a life together, one day at a time.

 

The blank page also makes me think of my grandfather. While he was imprisoned as a political “enemy of the state”, during Stalin’s Great Purge 1937-1954, he used any scrap of paper he laid his hands on to write poetry. After his release from prison, when Stalin died and was denounced, he continued to write poems that were critical of injustice. 

 

His texts often used humour, which made the poems seem lighthearted, even though they addressed profound issues. As a result, when I see the blank pages I imagine that a witty remark aimed at the government might be the most effective response to appear on them.  

 

– Art and Speaking to Power

 

For me, on the level of the artist and creator, a blank piece of paper represents potential, anticipation, imagination, possibility, challenge, and becoming. It raises questions of what something can become, and how to create something, to say something, where there was emptiness before. It is oriented toward the future, and for that reason it feels encouraging and exciting: a state of the “not-yet,” holding infinite futures within it. 

 

After watching and witnessing the ongoing protests against the rigged elections in Georgia, from 2024 to now, I began to question how, as an artist, I could say something meaningful about them. This is when I rediscovered the blank piece of paper. Blank rectangular surfaces, held aloft for the public to see, are already charged with meaning. Even without words, they evoke a range of urgent concerns in our minds with which to question the reasoning of our governments and leaders. They suggest a certain purity of thought: a distilled, unspoken clarity. They remind us to speak truth, both to ourselves and to power. 

 

Across the world, numerous groups are currently mobilising around different causes, each articulating specific political and social grievances. This convergence of movements suggests a historically distinctive moment characterised by widespread civic engagement and calls for accountability. As a single page cannot communicate the multiplicity of these voices, the blank page can instead, I think, function as a symbol of – Humanity’s Shared Struggle for Justice.

 

The above thoughts form the basis of my current series of paintings exhibited at 15 Beautreillis and the performance during the opening. And the following sentences serve as a key to the work:

 

A blank page, whether in the context of a protest, on a writing desk, or as depicted in an artwork, has inherent participátory qualities. A blank page does not feel complete on its own; instead, it shifts responsibility from itself to the viewer. Therefore, my painting of a blank page is not complete in itself. The artwork exists in the space between object and observer. Inviting the observer to formulate something within the space; and with this contributing to creating the artwork. In this way, my painting of a blank page becomes a conduit of ideas; it becomes a Mirror.

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