Book of Ruination

Artist book × paper sculpture. Gold on hand-cut paper, gold-plated chain. 15x15x2 cm in handmade slipcase. Limited Edition of 12.

DateMay 2023
Status9/12 available in the shop
Category, , ,

Ruination: “the action or fact of ruining someone or something or of being ruined

In the context of my Bearing Witness series, I wanted to make a beautiful but stark sculptural object telling a story gone wrong.

The piece is a functional book (see video) that can live in its slipcase, but is designed to be displayed as a paper sculpture; both formats tell the story equally.

The story: Here we have a small point of light piercing the darkness and beginning to expand, but this growth is undermined – chunks of the ground removed – before it can become an encompassing circle of wholeness. As structural integrity decreases, the word hadm هدم (“ruination”) becomes visible in absentia as the circle quietly disappears. A golden chain, functioning on a different plane, continues to keep the whole standing – up until there is no longer a centre that can hold.

Close-up view of the “end of the line”
Inside its slipcase
The closed book

Page by page:

Creation process

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