TIGRIS

23 Concrete and Deconstructed Book Sculptures 

20 channel sound collaboration with Christophe Priessing

“For almost a thousand years, Baghdad was the cultural capital of the Arab world, the most literate population in the Middle East. Genghis Khan's grandson burnt the city in the 13th century and, so it was said, the Tigris river ran black with the ink of books. Yesterday, the black ashes of thousands of ancient documents filled the skies of Iraq. Why?”

—Robert Fisk, journalist, The Independent, April 16, 2003

 This devastating loss was 20 years ago but it is sadly not unique in our collective world history. The destruction of books continues today in Ukraine and in subversive acts to remove books from schools and libraries in the US. The magnitude of the historical loss and the current attack on the freedom to read what one chooses to read informs my work. 

As a former bookbinder. 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, and codices were destroyed during power transfers, colonization, and division of communities. Books and the buildings that hold books (e.g., libraries, museums, 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. 

These are the questions we hold in our mind while traveling with Tigris:

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

Who decides what is removed and on what standards?

Why is literature by and for marginalized people under attack? 

Where can people go to read for free when libraries are defunded/closed/destroyed?

Who gets to access the internet?

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

Who is allowed to read it?

What books or words are deemed obsolete?  

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