SOMETHING IS MISSING

96 X 218, Collection of dismantled books mounted on wooden boards

As a former bookbinder, I am deeply connected to the book. I am well versed
in how a book is made and how materials, content, typography and images
can alter the book experience. I see the book as a performative vehicle to
express different concepts as a maker, reader and even destroyer. I have made
and dismantled thousands of books and reorganized them in response to
current book banning, assaults on fact-based journalism, retelling history
and misrepresentation of truth. 

The book is the original icon to disperse fact and fiction by those in power.
Historically, stones, walls, tablets, codexes were destoyed during power
transfers, colonialism and divided communities. Books and the buildings
that hold books (e.g., libraries, museum, religious centers, governmental
spaces, homes) continue to be the target of suppression or destruction.
As a result, countless people and cultures have been deprived of their
identity and heritage. The remnants of those words and ideas are becoming
memories. The magnitude of the historical loss and the current attack on the
freedom to read what one chooses to read informs my work. 

What happens when we remove all the books or words from books? 

Who decides what is removed and on what standards?

Or close/defund/destroy libraries - where can people go to read, the internet? 

What is fact today? Who is the writer? Who is the editor? 

Who is allowed to read it?

Why is literature by and for marganizilzed people under attack? 

What books or words are deemed obsolete?  

What is happening to the cultures that have lost their books, relics and artifacts?