Memorial
We all react differently to grief and tragedy, and the artists’ books in this case preserve memories of beings from times past in unique ways. These books are beautiful things born from traumatic, even horrific, beginnings. They are tributes to events of national and international concern, including the ongoing police brutality affecting black people in the United States, and personal accounts of 9/11. While memories of current events fade into collective social consciousness, there will always be people to whom these individuals are irreplaceable, and, for many, those memories of loss are never more than a moment away. Some gestures are exceedingly personal, like clippings from the hair of beloveds from the 19th century annotated and pasted into the pages of a book, or reflections on living with AIDS. These books reflect deeds that cannot be undone, like an alphabet of extinct animals represented in saturate prints reminiscent of children’s picture books.
Sandy Hook
Ginger R. Burrell. Sandy Hook. [San Jose, California: Midnight Moon Press, 2013].
Original photographs by the artist. Sandy Hook memorializes the twenty children and six staff members killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.
Going to Camp: A Meditation about AIDS, Quarantine, Exile and Personal Loss
David Acker and John Neely. Going to Camp: A Meditation about AIDS, Quarantine, Exile and Personal Loss. Rosendale, N.Y.: Women's Studio Workshop, c1987.
Accordion book structure, which unfolds into a cross shape.
Mourning/Warning: An Abecedarian
Tia Blassingame. Mourning/Warning: An Abecedarian. Newport, Rhode Island: Primrose Press, 2016.
From the artist: “Mourning/Warning highlights the relationship of Americans of the African diaspora to water, maritime trade, and the need for an alternate means of communication in times of emergency and duress. How do you send a warning call that hatred comes constantly in waves?”
Hair clippings from abolitionist Lydia Maria Child (1836), Mariquita (1852), father (1813), mother (1813), father (1846), father (1853), father (1856)
Even the Birds Were on Fire, 9.11.01
Sara Parkel. Even the Birds Were on Fire, 9.11.01. NY-NJ: S. Parkel: Filter Press, 2001.
A book of poetry fragments with a minute to minute timeline of the 9/11 events.
An Alphabet of Extinct Mammals
D. R. Wakefield. An Alphabet of Extinct Mammals. Goole [East Yorkshire]: Chevington Press, 2009.
Printed on a small 19th century star wheel engraving press.