August 17, 2021 • 58 mins
In this online event, Ana Paula Cordeiro, the creator of Body of Evidence, speaks from the workshop in New York City where she produced it. She will be joined in conversation by Merve Emre, Associate Professor of American Literature. Body of Evidence (2020) is an artist's book that examines the role of documentary evidence in defining national and individual identity. The red, white, and blue of the printing and binding echo a national story, viewed from the perspective of an immigrant, with quotations from Rebecca Solnit, Emily Dickinson, William James, Agnes Martin, and Fernando Pessoa.
We open the conversation by examining the book’s unique structure, moving on to consider the questions posed by the book’s theme. What qualifies as a document? When does a document become evidence? And what does this evidence prove about an individual or a nation? How can an individual's narrative assert their integrity in face of dehumanization? The conversation will be launched after a live presentation of the copy of this book now in the Bodleian.
Originally from Brazil, Cordeiro is based in New York and composes her book works at The Center for Book Arts in New York City, from where she will speak. In 2020 she was awarded a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Her artist books are collected privately and institutionally.
Book Arts programme from the Bodleian Libraries Centre for the Study of the Book.
Supported by a generous donation to the Bodleian Bibliographical Press.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm Alex Franklin, the manager of the Southern Centre for the Study of the book,
and I'm speaking to you from the printing workshop, which is located in the public library in Oxford.
In this ground floor room overlooking the quadrangle of the library are several cast-Iron hand presses like this one and a quantity of typed.
The Butlin's Printing Workshop was established in nineteen forty nine to teach students of literature how books were composed and printed by hand.
(00:28):
It is now used throughout the year by students and the community for demonstrations, experiments and making books.
The book arts programme from the bibliographical press includes a printing residency and is supported by a generous private donation.
Today, we are looking into a handmade artist book that came into the building, my very special collections in the past year.
(00:54):
This is body of evidence by Anna Powell, the Cordeiro, and we're delighted to have the audience with the artist with us in this webinar.
The Bodleian copy of this book will be expertly handed, handled on screen by my colleague John Maddox, a curator in the Building Forever section.
(01:16):
I'd also like to say hello in New York to Dr. Mauffray Emory,
associate professor of American literature in the faculty of English at the University
of Oxford and currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin.
Rebecca is the author of books including Power Literary The Making of Bad Readers in
post-War America and the Personality Brokers' A History of the Myers Briggs Test,
(01:41):
which is published in the UK under the title. What's your title?
Which seems very appropriate in this context.
And readers of my family's books and essays will know her as a brilliant guide to the imaginative and material interaction
of readers with publications of all kinds and also an astute observer of literary revelations and concealments.
(02:07):
You're there at the Centre for Book Arts with honour.
Yes, hello. And it's kind of extraordinary to be doing an event almost in person.
We are here at the Centre for Book Arts.
The audience might be able to see behind us several printing presses and we are surrounded by over six hundred different types of font.
(02:29):
I'm holding an A and an M in my hands right now.
So I just wanted to invite you to start talking about your book, the process behind it and what it means to you.
It means a lot. It means a lot. This book spans 20 years of my journals and my notes and my experiences,
(02:50):
and they culminated with the anxiety about immigration during the Trump administration.
And I can share with you something that happened to me recently, Facebook.
So it gave you some of the flavour of what my my inclination was when I tried to express the situation towards the book.
(03:12):
I was in a baby shower about a month ago and the gentleman sat with some older gentleman, some of those,
and start asking questions about this woman who said he wanted to go to Brazil, which everybody says and was charming.
He was engaging. He intended to express empathy.
(03:33):
And the way he managed to do that was by saying how determined they should get out of their.
And this deep side just had is my my sentiment toward the book.
I was clocking that fraction of a second before I opened my mouth, Schwester, feeling that I didn't want to hurt his.
(03:57):
I didn't want to tell him you insulted me. But I also had to somehow bring to light the fact it is a privilege had isolated him in such a way that the
understanding that he could achieve charm and engaging by posing a question that come across as racist.
(04:20):
It is just broken, it's like when language falls apart and the feelings and emotions are so charged with that,
people seem to have a disconnect between how they feel and how they express the feelings,
or also when the negativity of a set of circumstances will impress upon itself and will sweat out of the conversation without being invited.
(04:46):
Essentially, that was one circumstance that come to be things like that were noted both my books, my journals over the course of the last 20 years.
I came to New York in 2000.
And incidentally, the answer to the question is I have never left. I couldn't come up to tell him that I had managed to get out of there.
(05:07):
I have never left Pomace with me. And that is a dimension of the immigration perspective that people will rationalise upon.
But I cannot really touch on it unless I have experienced that like I have and like a number of people in our audience.
But we have. So during the past 20 years, in the process of learning English and getting acquainted from a new environment,
(05:33):
I started to make journo's and take notes and journals.
And that is an example of a situation that I have described in my book that later on when where the animosity in relationship to the other.
It escalated to a very pungent point in the past five years, which was unusual,
(05:55):
which hasn't happened to me before, I haven't before 2016 confronted that.
It was it was a very I wasn't prepared for it because I had been here for 15 years and I have never had in subtle ways,
but have never been so blatantly challenges in my assumptions of what.
(06:17):
Right. That had to be here or where do I come from. And this was all accepted and folded in society.
And then over the course of the last five years, those things became abrasive and became the reason for friction and and challenges.
And that is what the book speaks of, mostly in and of itself,
trying to puncture the big bubble that people live in in a way that they lose perspective of how
(06:44):
to how to embrace and welcome and what they feel is a certain sense of possessiveness like this,
just sort of I dimension. And that it creates a lot of material for material to speak of.
I had taken lots of notes and the books because I think we can start to highlight the bueso.
(07:07):
Yeah. Thank you.
You can get back get back real quick to the first page, so that page.
(07:28):
And that's fine.
Yes, that's the one I'm thinking about that that the way that the set it ends does not dagga, the typeface will increasingly diminished in space.
And that is describing a nightmare that I had in relationship to being accepted or rejected.
And the difficulty was just mentioned to me that the difficulty meeting,
(07:52):
reading the first line of the last line is the emotion that I wanted to express, how to navigate the psychic landscape of being at the same time.
Well, in the circumstances. Could you talk a little bit about that faded Mark that's in the upper corner where you all the little Xs.
(08:15):
Could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I. I wanted to establish some.
And I think that you have to see that this is where this was the record of a bunch of
circumstances in which it wasn't supposed to be here or wasn't accepted as far as belonging here.
(08:36):
And as such, I wanted to imply a certain amount of regulation and documentation.
And those marks are speaking of where the information that is being read on the page,
on the page that is coming from it's coming from my journals or something that I heard or my photos or what is the language, if it's English,
(08:58):
which is and what where the the the major if it was immature or I story that
I heard or written those deliberations and it repeats throughout the book,
it's meant to be somewhat illegible and that speaks of treating words like texture or language as something that
(09:21):
is tangible instead of just spoken off about something that has a presence that is beyond its own meaning.
If it exists in in in a substract, which is what you hold that you're holding tight.
So that's that is the that's the ultimate engagement with trying to find a voice that I can think of.
(09:45):
Yes, so can you go to that page where you had these words for? Speaking of difficulty.
At this particular page is a reference to something,
a process that was made in antiquity when people had sent letters abroad and
they did not know if the messenger would be alive at the end of the journey, they would do what's called a double tithe document.
(10:11):
The element of an element of the information that should be preserved from the viewer was going to be
concealed and only aspects of the mission so people would know what the letter was and were supposed to show,
but they wouldn't be able to. And what was the content? But they then be able to access the more the more damaging details to say so.
(10:35):
And in this particular case, what I did was I reverse that type.
So if you look up close, that is the back of the letter.
And those letters that are placed are bold and they're black.
Essentially, they were printed in reverse. So from the back of the letter, this is a very shoot from the back of the letter.
(10:59):
I blacked out with black ink.
And you can what you can see from the front of it, from the back of it, is the ink that has resisted the Black Sea of information.
And those are what I would say in my language, would be the incriminating details that I had been here,
(11:19):
that those were the dates and that's what I was doing at the supervisor was collaborating in 2005, which I mentioned.
And those were details that could potentially damage me if one wanted to consider that damaging.
I find it interesting how things can be used in whichever way they are supposed to be used.
The people will take advantage of a circumstance and twist it in a way that can serve the purposes regardless of what the context is.
(11:48):
And that is what that speaks of in a way. And redaction is such a powerful textual tool of our government.
That's what they use to deny people information. And so I think it's brilliant how you've appropriated that for your own purposes.
Thank you. I did that somewhat unconsciously. Have thought about that aspect that you just mentioned that.
(12:11):
Um, yeah. By the way, the book is a shape,
as if I would just quote The Book of Shape as an envelope is a few pages that reflects and opened up a part that is the shape that you see,
and that is also something that cannot be fixed on its foot.
(12:35):
So the book will not stand on its own, and that is a reference to the circumstances.
I particularly appreciate how difficult it is to handle the page that is not a paper, that is a piece of a shower curtain that had to go directly.
And the the the tactile, tactile quality of it is one thing,
(13:01):
but also how it's how it feels like you're going to damage something that is precious or something that has that has a lot of meaning.
And it can also be it can also be destroyed easily.
I think it also does remind us of the flag, the colours of the flag and the sense of danger.
(13:24):
So I am in the red highlights.
It is used throughout the book as a reference to danger and to contextualising what is at the same time exciting and frightening in a way,
the spaces that some people have expressed a lot of curiosity about in terms of process.
(13:47):
But mainly this is an alternative photographic process,
which means that those are ways of creating photographs that did not depend on a lot of equipment at that time.
People didn't have the technology to be able to manipulate photographs or to create certain types of engagement with the images.
(14:09):
And what they did was to use some that those are ways of exposing material, exposing chemicals that will.
Will come primarily on sunlight, so develop the image, and I think that that is a combination of two different processes,
a cyanotype in the ground and what happens when you overlap those chemicals that they became very unpredictable.
(14:35):
So this is essentially impossible to to consistently each one of those elements of the book that are not actually indiscernible,
but which I mean, you cannot really replicate exactly alike, which is part of being a personal experience.
This particular one, I enhanced that aspect of not being quite replicable by adding the folds and the photo.
(15:00):
The paper made it be that the chemicals all around and get overlapping different different densities and that creates a different result.
Speaking of a realist, I appreciate the capacity of creating materials, organic principles.
(15:21):
Thank you, Jim. You can carry on. At one point, could we zoom in on that little chart in the corner that shows the documentation notes?
Any of those top left, up, right? Veiga.
(15:55):
Excellent. Yeah, those cross marks, actually, it is a bunch of reference to that danger, emotion and also Emily Dickinson,
because part of this book was motivated by a heavy by the book by her in which she expressed the desire to go to Brazil.
And it's because of the one thing that she was not able to do.
(16:18):
And that's that that touches me very deeply, because I have in my life access to artistic expression and a community that keeps me in New York.
But I miss home. So it is as if I have not.
Is this as if I do have a choice?
I made the choice I made up to be here and to do my artwork and the prices that I'm going to move to from my background, from my home family session.
(16:46):
But I was also thinking, when you mentioned that the book is in the shape of an envelope,
I was thinking about Dickinson's envelope fragment in fragments.
Right. Envelope puzzle and how you've created something that really resonates with that,
this collection of art that is also functioning as a documentation of its own medium of of creation and of transformation.
(17:09):
Precisely. And how that and how that enduring and how that had such a such a meaning,
such a layer of meaning that was not even welcome as can speak for what was expected.
But the repercussions of her thinking into our lives, into my personal life is over.
The emotion that I find, it just makes my hair kind of raised in the sense.
(17:33):
So it's Kevin. What was one aspect of this book that that.
(18:05):
That is part of the book in itself, was that I had to work really hard to stop doing that because there was always material to be spoken of.
I started off with just a few pages and it kept on growing because of the circumstances, because of the situation.
There is a is matu that there was actually never intended to be there to start with.
(18:28):
And that became part of it because. Because the urgency, the pressing, the the charge of the moment,
maybe that was just impossible to leave behind and it could have carried on working on it, that just had to at some point.
And so you have to move on to something else as supposed to stay on endlessly growing this on projects they often don't speak about colourfulness.
(18:53):
Just one thing I'm sorry to interrupt that little figure that is embedded within the text on a previous page,
there was a very little oval shaped figure embedded within the text.
And I think that's really a lovely thing. It's not easy to see from afar, but we we were we could look closely at the photo.
(19:17):
That is that is one of my tricks to express difficulty and anguish and and the fact that reality is somewhat not quite real and palpable.
This it's it's meant to be this way is hard to read for a reason.
This is a dream in which at some point towards the end of the dream, there was a silver leopard and some of the line of it there.
(19:41):
And that image, if you can lift the face just ever so slightly so you can see that image is like a shimmering, shimmering print of like.
Yeah, it's hard to see. And that's intentional if you have the book in front of you.
And that's part of what it means to interact with the artwork that each person is going to have its own experience on.
(20:03):
It is a little animal in there. It's a cat. It's a cat.
It's a big leopard. Yeah,
it's intended to be that you can see it in a particular position if you're in a very distinct relationship to the page and have the light bounces,
which is the fear that I get when I'm waking up in the morning and I dream profusely and I have to
(20:24):
declare to my mind the regular basis to get rid of all the sort of emotions that come with my dreams.
And that is what comes to be this, the sense of trying to focus on what is important and let go of what is just creating anxiety.
In a way, that's what the difficulty of reading that image comes up to the.
(20:50):
Bookmarks are very particular in that way,
it's not the kind of art the world responds to by being exposed to the kind of art that one's response to, by being intimate with.
And I I understand that that creates certain difficulties that this day and age.
Because not many people will be able to touch this book, but I strongly believe in the power of the one.
(21:15):
And so one of the few people that will touch the book that will create that they will create something that is authentic,
that is even applicable in a way that's part of the logic of the envelope to write what you put in an envelope is not intended for everybody.
Exactly who read it has a recipient.
And so there's always something about the intimacy of an envelope that invites that kind of singular experience, not the.
(21:51):
Is there anything else that you'd like me to show I the screen?
Now, maybe we can just talk about the colourful private. There less about.
Settlement victims have an opportunity to I looked at it, I read the text of this, I mean,
your discussion of this is interesting to me because because I only saw the photographs of the book that were sent to me from the plan.
(22:19):
And so I probably spent more time reading the text than I did, but also just because I'm wildly ignorant when it comes to these questions of process.
So this is really educational for you. You talk about all of this, but this was this was very interesting to me,
in part because it seems like on the one hand and acknowledgements page and on the other hand,
(22:41):
a kind of documentation of how many different people are involved in producing a book like
this and how they each have their own emotional investments in different parts of the book,
the binder, the printer, the artist. You has an amazing community that comes out on this page for me.
I don't know if that tallies with your wonderful with your experience of it, but that is a bit of a nod to.
(23:08):
So the distinction between craftsmanship and artistry, which for me are one thing,
and then the banker, the painter, and there are still the same person,
and that is the play that I do trust, the California,
I'm shifting the highlight between the process and the creation of the and integrating that, as I call it, fun.
(23:30):
Just to give a little background, the colourful is, as I said,
an acknowledgement that technically is what comes at the end of the book describing where the book was made and what the materials are used.
And it's something that functions as a bibliographical reference.
In this particular case, I extrapolated quite a lot from that because I was under the influence of a bunch of different colour forms that I had read,
(23:56):
particularly Walter Hammoudeh, that we have a show of his work.
So that's why what was right and colourful.
And then he would be very playful if he said of talking about the process you talk about or you think about,
you just kind of shifted around to whatever he could.
And the reason why he did that, because he's the artist and he has the power to determine the outcome of any of those pages.
(24:19):
In this particular case, I was very inspired by for another episode,
which is the Portuguese poet that spoke in very different languages and a bunch of defence,
over 70 different writing styles, and each one of them was its own character.
And that is the point of me shifting the focus from the artist to the painter to the binder because they're all one person.
(24:42):
And there were also other people that came forward in other circumstances that have
added to a layer of the content of this book and the production of it in itself.
It's also a reference to several different places in nature, to Emily,
something positive or books that have read and poetry that have come my way or things that I had written in different ways.
(25:07):
Yeah, it is. It's complex. It's it's not behaving well.
It's a of music and it has is like a wild creature that had loads of its own, its own context.
It's also the one part of the book that. My name's Charles.
In reality, other than the redacted pages, and it's intended to be that it can be taken away for the book.
(25:30):
So in essence, this book could have no identity for one page because it's not bound to the book.
If we're to take that one page out of the book doesn't have an identity.
The book doesn't belong to or was not, in fact made by anyone in particular.
It could be the voice of a bunch of people who have been through the circumstance that I have been through.
(25:52):
It has that that that omission. But also, when the page was just moved, the read underneath it,
it's like discovering a crime scene or something and finding blood splatter under underneath the collar.
Yeah. See it. Right. Those are those are clues to some kind of mystery.
(26:12):
Ah yeah. I haven't I haven't processed that those things in terms of a desired outcome.
Those are my goals. But a lot of things came into being in the process of making the book and the bones of the story bones
with the sense of the emotion that I'm trying to convey and with the process of making it look at itself.
But yeah, not many people will remove that, but there will to remove that, we will have that experience, which is open to continuing.
(26:42):
Sansonetti. William.
(27:03):
Is there anything else that you'd like me to show before your shift to the front
cover again so I can speak a little bit of the materials that are in there?
A few different elements in that and and they are elements, they are not a representation of the element of the element in itself,
(27:26):
the gates of Brown that look like pointing out the words of that to the what evidence?
Those are woodblock. Those are pieces from things that I have sanded and embedded in the cover.
And a little bit under the word evidence. There is a streak of mother of Pearl that is, again, the element itself, not a representation of the.
(27:51):
Part of that is to highlight how important it is for me and I guess for the of people experience the work and responding to it,
there is a physicality of it that it is my life that is being exposed.
There is my presence here that has been either questioned or accepted in a way is not a representation of it, is the thing in itself.
(28:16):
And then that might be made books for 10 years now, so 18 years old and this book might have been the one that had been the most vulnerable of at all.
It's probably but it is certainly that it was difficult to make. It was difficult to write.
It was difficult to find very challenging, and it was very difficult to find.
(28:38):
And I did not expect that difficulty. There was something that came as a revelation, how challenging it was to put myself through that process,
even though I have experienced with all the techniques the content made it to be,
there was another layer of eternal struggle to come to diving into a past in a way.
(29:02):
So, yeah, that the the the roughness of those layers of leather that had been saved the way in the way things kind of fell apart.
Speaking of that,
speaking about that that I mentioned of having to go through something that was literally visceral and speaking from a place of great vulnerability.
(29:24):
So it. Well, there is a kind of extraordinary tension between the personal and personal in this book,
so those moments where you've redacted your name or your name is on the phone, but it can be.
Right. And this book could be the product of anybody's experience.
But on the other hand, the text in the book contains very detailed descriptions of physical injuries that you sustained.
(29:52):
Accidents fit in.
And so I really admire that kind of kinship that set up in the book between thinking anybody could have spoken or written or created this,
crafted it into existence, and then the particularity of belonging to one person and one person's body.
Yeah, that's a very astute observation in the.
(30:16):
I think I think it goes with the book to maybe bounce back to the next stage.
That's wonderful. So I think we are going to have a bit of a tour, a mini tour of the Centre for Picards.
Hello, everyone, my name is Carina Reynolds and the executive director of the Centre for Book Arts.
(30:43):
Thank you, Merv, and for that wonderful walk through of your book.
It's amazing to hear you speak about it in depth. They've been watching this and to being over.
I mean, I think almost I been I've been watching this happen over 10 years now.
I think that's about how long we've known each other, but so wonderful.
(31:06):
So thank you for sharing that with us. So we are here at Centre for Book Arts.
A was founded in nineteen seventy four by the artist Richard Manski.
He started the organisation with the idea that artists in New York City needed a
(31:26):
space to have access to the tools and materials that you need to produce books.
And if you can imagine being in New York City, it's actually quite hard if you're living in a sixth floor, walk up to have your own.
(31:47):
Let me give you a view outside of our window here.
So this is what it's like here in New York, and this is the type of equipment that we have.
So right now, we're standing in our print shop in New York City.
And one of the first things you might notice are all of these beautiful or very chaotic, skinny drawers.
(32:20):
This is our letterpress print shop. And each of these drawers contains its own font of type.
We have over six hundred and fifty typefaces here at Seeb or six hundred and fifty fonts.
And each one of these drawers has its own little thing here.
(32:41):
And this is going to be actually pick up something that's a little more recognisable, very hard to see.
They're going to focus anyways, each one of these little things here has its own letter.
So when an artist comes to Seeb and they start to work in our print shop, one of the first things they learn about is how to set type.
(33:06):
And this is one of the key processes that onna used in her project, body of evidence.
So you're all familiar with, let's say, a word processing or email programmes where you're able to easily switch from Bould to Italic,
(33:26):
from Comic Sans to York Times or two times Roman.
And here, instead of easily switching back and forth, you have to pull a whole nother draw.
You have to pull and you have to set and pick up each one of those individual pieces and you put them together.
So on pulled out a really wonderful treat for us here, which is actually some of the type that she set for body of evidence.
(33:53):
So this is that page here again that is showing us.
It has that beautiful, iridescent, very subtle image.
And you can see the type here. It's all letterpress print. It was printed on one of these presses right here.
This is called a Vanderhook proofing process. It's a semi automatic SIMMI manual letter press that was originally developed
(34:23):
to prove also in a word like Microsoft Word and and word processing software,
you're able to easily find and catch mistakes here.
You have to take this type and put it on this press, then print it into it and then read it and make sure that everything's fine.
(34:47):
So that is something that on did for every single copy of this book.
Each of these letters here is handled that by her upside down and backwards and then set up on the press, printed and approved and then printed again.
One of my favourite things about watching the production of this book was that I would
(35:12):
often come into the studio while I was working in the morning or in the evening,
and she would be set up on one of these presses as if this one.
Yeah. Here, I'll show you which press it was, this one here.
So she would often be standing right behind the press, working, having these huge sheets of paper, and they would just be rolling through the press.
(35:39):
And it was always it's almost meditative process, which I really loved.
One of the amazing things that Quba is able to offer to our artists that come in and use our spaces is that we now finally,
after many years, which was, I think, helpful at the very end, while you're doing your colourful,
(36:01):
maybe we have a type catalogue which shows where every typefaces is organised by cabinet.
So if you discover something and you want to know what it is, then you have this here typeface.
If you're looking for something particular and point size if you're looking for something in a particular size.
And that all corresponds to also a type specimen book.
(36:27):
So we do have an incredible variety of typefaces at Centre for Book Arts,
things that are incredibly unique that you would have never seen anywhere else.
I mean, some of them are one or two known fonts in the world of the same typeface, which is kind of amazing.
(36:50):
So Anahad had a lot of options to choose from while she was working on a body of evidence.
So just quickly to tell you a little bit more about how our studios work here at Zebo, we are free and open to the public.
So anyone who wants to learn how to print or make a book can come to Quba, take a class,
(37:15):
learn how to use these presses, learn how to set type, and then they can come in.
And really right now, Monday through Saturday, 11 to four, and they can actually just get dirty.
So we recognise that the fact that you can't have one of these presses in your apartment,
that you can't have a thirty six inch guillotine in your apartment. And so we make that available to the artists.
(37:42):
We also have six to 10 artist in residence per year. They stay here for an.
The year they get to use our presses, they have keys onna is also a key holder.
So it's not uncommon to see her with the artist in residence early in the morning or late at night working on something spectacular.
(38:03):
And you really get to immerse yourself. So we have studio programmes here.
We have classes, we have artist residencies, exhibitions,
which you may have noticed as I was walking into the print shop, as well as an incredible collection.
So with that, I will pass it back to you all.
(38:25):
And thank you for coming to visit me in New York and see here.
So I think we'll just chat a little bit about the book.
That's all right with you.
I mean, I'm so fascinated in here because I usually see books that are much more conventional and on the other side of the process.
(38:48):
So I feel like this is a body of evidence is full of so many different voices, not just your voice,
but the voices of friends, text messages you show Emily Dickinson, as you mentioned, Pascola, William James, Rebecca Solnit.
(39:09):
How did you match those voices to plants?
How did you decide how to visualise different people's contributions to the typical people?
Came as part of the process of the material that is behind the most of it.
So it will cause to different voices, essentially my voice and everybody else's voices.
(39:35):
My voice is normally Sensorites and I Taric, and when I'm speaking of a quotation of somebody else's,
I'm using a service found that is a moment and the context of it comes from what has been under in Rebekah's on its case.
For instance,
I'm speaking about how our writing refers to this dimension of wandering and discovery and the process of process of layering emotions on it.
(40:05):
And that is what you see in the back of her voice. In a sense, I could have changed.
I could have used a variety of different typefaces because of the craziness and it's available.
But I I prefer to be more conservative about it because I didn't want to create a company that could have that can be an
(40:29):
effect of using that many different typefaces that you people feel as if they are in a room that has a lot of clamouring.
And it's a fantasy about a situation the way that certain things would translate in certain ways and different states.
So a visual visual clutter will create a sense of social injustice.
(40:50):
And some people have read about and that I wanted to create them.
I want to be able to control the temperature of the book, so to speak, in a way that's fascinating.
Why those why those voices? So we talked a little bit already about Dickinson's poetry and the sort of effect it has.
Why William James, why Rebecca Solnit, Ypersele? What is it about these interlocutor's that that spoke to you?
(41:16):
Those are passages that I have copied the midterms while I was reading those books or exposer statements review you.
Those are particular passages that I spoke to the moment that I was reading aloud.
And that has an aspect of randomness to it that I find that just fascinating.
But at that particular moment,
I have access to that particular piece of information that was so crucial to where exactly that is the education process to participate in the book.
(41:46):
There are also there's also an aspect of affinity.
We know James has done great studies about the spirituality, psychology of spirituality, so to speak,
and in and the complexities of the discovery of a process of discovery, which is something that I speak of.
(42:10):
Rebecca Solnit is one of my greatest heroes.
Basically everything that she says could have been written about my life in a number of people's lives that I know of.
But in particular for this book, I, I not only welcomed her and embraced her perspective of being able to embrace the unknown and welcome the welcome,
(42:36):
the variables way for another person again.
And then he speaks in Portuguese, which is something that I want to touch.
And the way he is now growing up in Brazil and being exposed to literature classes gave me the sense that he was a kind of a melancholy character,
not very sexy at all.
(42:58):
My my colleagues with such opinions kind of had to be sort of difficult person to deal with this this hurdle we have to cross through.
I never got the feeling for him. I always thought that he was somewhat cheerful in his very negative perspective.
But this approach to life that had an element of element of faith in it.
(43:22):
You speak that throughout our own internal darkness there will be a moment of light and there will be a moment of revelation that is given up,
which was always there.
Well, there are interesting moments in the book itself where you think a situation that you are in is going to turn out very, very bad.
(43:46):
So when you there is a a story that is narrated where you fall and you have a concussion and you
have to go to the hospital and you're worried about both the police and the medical system.
But it turns out everyone is sort of wonderfully sympathetic and you're really well cared for,
which is not what one expects as you're building up to that story.
(44:08):
So do you feel like the bull in in in talking about the politics of immigration or the politics of migration,
do you feel like it does have those moments of optimism where the structures we think are supposed to address actually what you actually work for,
you are actually provide this really strange source of care in a way that New York City always took care of me?
(44:33):
Yeah, and that is something that I think is particular to New York City. I haven't been on many places.
I came from my hometown Salvadori to New York, and I stayed here the rest of my life.
So I'm not that familiar with what happens in other places as opposed to I know from experience.
But I have an excuse me.
So I thought that New York I was in New York to New York and the as an organisation, which is an extremely progressive organisation,
(44:58):
has welcomed the other and has provided for the other and embraced and accommodated the other Detroit some folks.
And it is a tricky suplex. New York Police Department, the vast majority of the people that I know have had negative connexions, but somehow.
(45:18):
I always had good luck with that.
Good luck to the extent that they let me off the hook a number of times, out of, I suspect, again, a sense of protection.
And that is something that is inherent tension between welcoming and questioning presence at the same time.
(45:40):
Well, and also one of the things that you say in the book that really moved me was
that the language or the category of immigrant doesn't quite work for you,
but neither does the category of expatriate and that you feel like you sit somewhere in between or perhaps somewhere outside of or nowhere or nowhere.
(46:01):
Right. And I was just curious to hear you speak a little more about that kind of ongoing.
Right, not knowing what category of other one belongs to.
It's something that I had to settle with to come to terms with.
I think it's very distinctive to human nature to want to know where you'll find yourself
(46:22):
in a particular place and settle with it and feel confident that that's where you belong.
And I haven't gotten into that, even though I feel that I am here and I'm fully presently here to the extent that what I do is basically.
Like, imagine that because of that book that is part of me,
that both the Canada associate myself while at the same time speaks of an experience that is universal,
(46:49):
I hope they do something about this,
something about not knowing what to expect that has made me and a friend of mine had called the long term uncertainty.
And they went through I went to moments ahead of anxiety for a few years that was borderline totalising.
(47:11):
And then I managed to overcome it and come to a point where I'm quite functional
within my within the parameters of my anxiety as long as I respected and respected.
And I think that that is a character that is a result of understanding that.
(47:32):
At the same time, I have a degree of control, but I am and I don't want to say at the mercy because it's sounds like a dramatic,
but I am I am under the influence of circumstances that completely out of my control and have come to peace with it.
I've come to have come to operate within them without letting me paralyse me in the way that it does.
(48:00):
I mean, it's also obviously been an opportunity for a kind of aesthetic pleasure as a great deal.
As much as there is pain in this book and as much as there's agitation, there's also a great deal of beauty that is that springs from that, I think.
And that's what I that's what I liked about about the book that it is it's a body of evidence that doesn't point to any one particular conclusion.
(48:27):
Right. It keeps all of these questions about the long game, about identity,
about what an individual's relationship is to these larger structures around them.
It keeps all of those questions animated. It doesn't it doesn't settle them at once and for all.
And there is no settling. Right? There is no there is no end in sight to the question.
That's what can progress mankind's progress. Right.
(48:49):
I think we should maybe take some questions from the audience. Yes, there are some questions and some of them are very technical about the process.
And some of them are about the book and the life of the book after your creation.
So just to summarise a couple of them asking about what are the technically challenging facts of of that book,
(49:14):
what were the technically challenging aspects of that book to make? What was the most challenging?
And then within that, perhaps a specific question,
what was the process for creating that iridescent medallion effect with the great curiosity about the.
I certainly struggled with the shape of it working when we are working with an addition,
(49:39):
we wanted to be somewhat consistent through such a thing as a variable edition.
But ideally, we are working with not ideally my intention of it.
I mean, those things are all so subjective. So what is the artistic profile of it?
In my case, I wanted to be consistent.
I it's a tension between just embracing the organic aspect of it, that it's kind of wild and determines its own outcome,
(50:05):
but wanted it to be somewhat controllable and be something that I recognised as my own.
And that belongs within itself and it reflects on the mother. The shape was hard to keep that shape consistent throughout the book.
It was a very physically demanding process.
There were there were many layers of many moments of different cuts.
(50:30):
And what's called a G had to create some sort of a.
All to cut through and to replicate that many times it's an additional nine and the book grew quite large.
I did not expect when they said go for that shape, I did not know what I was getting myself into it because I didn't realise how big the book was
(50:52):
going to be as as a reference to material that kept coming and kept them incorporated to the book.
So it was like a mountain that kept on growing.
I figured that something and then I more happened and I have to figure something else out and stay with the process of it.
It was very labour intensive.
The shaking itself and the covers are what's called a like a. process in which you basically strip the finished out of the leather.
(51:16):
And that exposes the sweet side of the leather.
And that's why this weight is very much like a sponge, things you attach to in a way,
that's how the three barracks and other elements are so seamlessly fitting because that becomes a.
Scheme that some people should remember, that something that is also part of why the book speaks of the circumstances in and of itself,
(51:46):
it's a scheme that had been created to absorb different materials in a way, and that is technically challenge is labour intensive.
It's just gruesome. It's very messy, but also very rewarding because it responds to it, responds to it.
I think people responded to it in a level that is more visceral than they would otherwise.
(52:09):
The iridescence, iridescence decency on that cat image, which is a leopard, is a effect of the paper, actually,
that the little paper that is attached to it and gunky is not made out of wood, is made out of bacon.
Press press that has been pounded into it has become like it's something that is very soubry and thin and malleable.
(52:37):
It doesn't behave like ape, but you cannot really glue it like paper. You cannot really teach it like it is paper, but it's not.
And he has a very fine, but it's more like it behaves like silk.
It's like if you were to think of silk in paper form, that's what companies and typically letter press does not get a lot of metallics.
(52:59):
It's a very opaque system. But with gum you can get that response to light in a way because it has its own luminosity.
This is probably so obvious to you and to anyone else who works with these materials, but I'm suddenly really struck by how the natural,
the nonhuman animal, the mechanical and the human all come together in the process of making this book.
(53:24):
Yeah, that's wonderful. We spoke a lot about the printing part of it, but the bindings it's on.
Right. Forgive me for saying that the mind is its own animal, so.
Whenever there's a question for you, what's the potential for books like this in teaching?
(53:46):
Well, it's it's so funny because right before we started this webinar,
I was saying that I have to bring my students to the battalion when I teach Emily Dickinson to look at your to look at your book,
because I think the potential well, I think there are two really important things.
I think, first, the potential is that the same way I'm having an educational experience here,
(54:08):
talking to my students can have the same educational experience and they can understand how the the text of a book cannot
be and should not be divorced from a consideration of the materials that go into making and printing and finding the book.
So just to be more historical in my teaching, I feel very inspired by this.
(54:34):
But then the second potential, I think, is to show how 19th century texts can have these extraordinary twenty first century resonances and to show
my students that we can think Emily and onna together and understand and what I want women in there to do.
(54:54):
I would teach you three together and understand what it means to talk about the long game,
what it means to talk about citizenship and what it means to talk about the nation as
such and how books give us a kind of insight into those categories in this immediate,
embodied, physical and intimate, intimate way.
(55:18):
So this is very inspiring for thinking about my course planning in Michaelmas term.
Wonderful. And I suppose we only have a few seconds to finally ask a lot of curiosity about.
Of course, this is a book you've said, which is and very few copies. How many copies have you produced and is there a practical maximum?
(55:40):
And the there is a there is also a question from our keeper of special collections here at the Bodleian.
Do you tailor this for the recipients? He's interested to know is the copy that's coming to the Bodleian specially tailored for the library?
It's an addition of nine. The limitation on that is that it's too much work.
(56:06):
It's just insane amount of work. Does it take you to make each one?
I can't measure it in time. I have to work on this process and project for about five years.
So it's all painted now. And by the dates me, the pages are printed in folded in shape.
Now, what I have to do before each one gets out of the house is to make the covers and operate the coverage of the book itself.
(56:28):
And that takes me about a month between making copies and making the box at this stage.
And I have been working on it for five years.
So it's quite it's not five years exclusively dedicated to that, but it's it's labour-intensive in a way that I can't really get paid for.
That is the kind of labour that this labour of love you put it on.
And if something is going to work out in the end, then you're going to move on.
(56:52):
But it's not to be asked about your particular expenses I, I have been working on then as the comes.
So I cannot say that I tailored to each one of the colourfulness personal lives, so the book would be commissioned by whoever is the purchaser of it.
(57:13):
But it is I didn't say I couldn't say that I made it for the book that your copy is your copy.
But I can say that the copy that you have was the copy that is produced in that particular time.
And that speaks of where or was it almost emotionally,
because there are things that I do to the letter that if I am somewhat angry or not rested enough, we all reflect in a way or the other.
(57:39):
They are copies that will probably have a particular have more of a kind of a comb centred
language itself and a cops that would betray more emotional than than I had meant it to you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
(58:00):
Thank you. Thank you to our our audience and the questions which I'm afraid we've we've not been able to answer all of them,
but we will save those and convey this on again.
And thank you to our hosts, the Centre for Book Arts in New York, to Kareem Rennolds for that wonderful tour.
(58:21):
To my colleagues, Joe Maddox, who is handling the book in the public library,
and Steph Springboro, who has been hosting us on the same call behind the scenes very expertly.
And we do hope to see you all again at other events, other online like this,
which is such a great way to connect across the Atlantic or of course, in person.
I'm Alex Franklin, the manager of the Southern Centre for the Study of the book,
and I'm speaking to you from the printing workshop, which is located in the public library in Oxford.
In this ground floor room overlooking the quadrangle of the library are several cast-Iron hand presses like this one and a quantity of typed.
The Butlin's Printing Workshop was established in nineteen forty nine to teach students of literature how books were composed and printed by hand.
(00:28):
It is now used throughout the year by students and the community for demonstrations, experiments and making books.
The book arts programme from the bibliographical press includes a printing residency and is supported by a generous private donation.
Today, we are looking into a handmade artist book that came into the building, my very special collections in the past year.
(00:54):
This is body of evidence by Anna Powell, the Cordeiro, and we're delighted to have the audience with the artist with us in this webinar.
The Bodleian copy of this book will be expertly handed, handled on screen by my colleague John Maddox, a curator in the Building Forever section.
(01:16):
I'd also like to say hello in New York to Dr. Mauffray Emory,
associate professor of American literature in the faculty of English at the University
of Oxford and currently a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin.
Rebecca is the author of books including Power Literary The Making of Bad Readers in
post-War America and the Personality Brokers' A History of the Myers Briggs Test,
(01:41):
which is published in the UK under the title. What's your title?
Which seems very appropriate in this context.
And readers of my family's books and essays will know her as a brilliant guide to the imaginative and material interaction
of readers with publications of all kinds and also an astute observer of literary revelations and concealments.
(02:07):
You're there at the Centre for Book Arts with honour.
Yes, hello. And it's kind of extraordinary to be doing an event almost in person.
We are here at the Centre for Book Arts.
The audience might be able to see behind us several printing presses and we are surrounded by over six hundred different types of font.
(02:29):
I'm holding an A and an M in my hands right now.
So I just wanted to invite you to start talking about your book, the process behind it and what it means to you.
It means a lot. It means a lot. This book spans 20 years of my journals and my notes and my experiences,
(02:50):
and they culminated with the anxiety about immigration during the Trump administration.
And I can share with you something that happened to me recently, Facebook.
So it gave you some of the flavour of what my my inclination was when I tried to express the situation towards the book.
(03:12):
I was in a baby shower about a month ago and the gentleman sat with some older gentleman, some of those,
and start asking questions about this woman who said he wanted to go to Brazil, which everybody says and was charming.
He was engaging. He intended to express empathy.
(03:33):
And the way he managed to do that was by saying how determined they should get out of their.
And this deep side just had is my my sentiment toward the book.
I was clocking that fraction of a second before I opened my mouth, Schwester, feeling that I didn't want to hurt his.
(03:57):
I didn't want to tell him you insulted me. But I also had to somehow bring to light the fact it is a privilege had isolated him in such a way that the
understanding that he could achieve charm and engaging by posing a question that come across as racist.
(04:20):
It is just broken, it's like when language falls apart and the feelings and emotions are so charged with that,
people seem to have a disconnect between how they feel and how they express the feelings,
or also when the negativity of a set of circumstances will impress upon itself and will sweat out of the conversation without being invited.
(04:46):
Essentially, that was one circumstance that come to be things like that were noted both my books, my journals over the course of the last 20 years.
I came to New York in 2000.
And incidentally, the answer to the question is I have never left. I couldn't come up to tell him that I had managed to get out of there.
(05:07):
I have never left Pomace with me. And that is a dimension of the immigration perspective that people will rationalise upon.
But I cannot really touch on it unless I have experienced that like I have and like a number of people in our audience.
But we have. So during the past 20 years, in the process of learning English and getting acquainted from a new environment,
(05:33):
I started to make journo's and take notes and journals.
And that is an example of a situation that I have described in my book that later on when where the animosity in relationship to the other.
It escalated to a very pungent point in the past five years, which was unusual,
(05:55):
which hasn't happened to me before, I haven't before 2016 confronted that.
It was it was a very I wasn't prepared for it because I had been here for 15 years and I have never had in subtle ways,
but have never been so blatantly challenges in my assumptions of what.
(06:17):
Right. That had to be here or where do I come from. And this was all accepted and folded in society.
And then over the course of the last five years, those things became abrasive and became the reason for friction and and challenges.
And that is what the book speaks of, mostly in and of itself,
trying to puncture the big bubble that people live in in a way that they lose perspective of how
(06:44):
to how to embrace and welcome and what they feel is a certain sense of possessiveness like this,
just sort of I dimension. And that it creates a lot of material for material to speak of.
I had taken lots of notes and the books because I think we can start to highlight the bueso.
(07:07):
Yeah. Thank you.
You can get back get back real quick to the first page, so that page.
(07:28):
And that's fine.
Yes, that's the one I'm thinking about that that the way that the set it ends does not dagga, the typeface will increasingly diminished in space.
And that is describing a nightmare that I had in relationship to being accepted or rejected.
And the difficulty was just mentioned to me that the difficulty meeting,
(07:52):
reading the first line of the last line is the emotion that I wanted to express, how to navigate the psychic landscape of being at the same time.
Well, in the circumstances. Could you talk a little bit about that faded Mark that's in the upper corner where you all the little Xs.
(08:15):
Could you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, I. I wanted to establish some.
And I think that you have to see that this is where this was the record of a bunch of
circumstances in which it wasn't supposed to be here or wasn't accepted as far as belonging here.
(08:36):
And as such, I wanted to imply a certain amount of regulation and documentation.
And those marks are speaking of where the information that is being read on the page,
on the page that is coming from it's coming from my journals or something that I heard or my photos or what is the language, if it's English,
(08:58):
which is and what where the the the major if it was immature or I story that
I heard or written those deliberations and it repeats throughout the book,
it's meant to be somewhat illegible and that speaks of treating words like texture or language as something that
(09:21):
is tangible instead of just spoken off about something that has a presence that is beyond its own meaning.
If it exists in in in a substract, which is what you hold that you're holding tight.
So that's that is the that's the ultimate engagement with trying to find a voice that I can think of.
(09:45):
Yes, so can you go to that page where you had these words for? Speaking of difficulty.
At this particular page is a reference to something,
a process that was made in antiquity when people had sent letters abroad and
they did not know if the messenger would be alive at the end of the journey, they would do what's called a double tithe document.
(10:11):
The element of an element of the information that should be preserved from the viewer was going to be
concealed and only aspects of the mission so people would know what the letter was and were supposed to show,
but they wouldn't be able to. And what was the content? But they then be able to access the more the more damaging details to say so.
(10:35):
And in this particular case, what I did was I reverse that type.
So if you look up close, that is the back of the letter.
And those letters that are placed are bold and they're black.
Essentially, they were printed in reverse. So from the back of the letter, this is a very shoot from the back of the letter.
(10:59):
I blacked out with black ink.
And you can what you can see from the front of it, from the back of it, is the ink that has resisted the Black Sea of information.
And those are what I would say in my language, would be the incriminating details that I had been here,
(11:19):
that those were the dates and that's what I was doing at the supervisor was collaborating in 2005, which I mentioned.
And those were details that could potentially damage me if one wanted to consider that damaging.
I find it interesting how things can be used in whichever way they are supposed to be used.
The people will take advantage of a circumstance and twist it in a way that can serve the purposes regardless of what the context is.
(11:48):
And that is what that speaks of in a way. And redaction is such a powerful textual tool of our government.
That's what they use to deny people information. And so I think it's brilliant how you've appropriated that for your own purposes.
Thank you. I did that somewhat unconsciously. Have thought about that aspect that you just mentioned that.
(12:11):
Um, yeah. By the way, the book is a shape,
as if I would just quote The Book of Shape as an envelope is a few pages that reflects and opened up a part that is the shape that you see,
and that is also something that cannot be fixed on its foot.
(12:35):
So the book will not stand on its own, and that is a reference to the circumstances.
I particularly appreciate how difficult it is to handle the page that is not a paper, that is a piece of a shower curtain that had to go directly.
And the the the tactile, tactile quality of it is one thing,
(13:01):
but also how it's how it feels like you're going to damage something that is precious or something that has that has a lot of meaning.
And it can also be it can also be destroyed easily.
I think it also does remind us of the flag, the colours of the flag and the sense of danger.
(13:24):
So I am in the red highlights.
It is used throughout the book as a reference to danger and to contextualising what is at the same time exciting and frightening in a way,
the spaces that some people have expressed a lot of curiosity about in terms of process.
(13:47):
But mainly this is an alternative photographic process,
which means that those are ways of creating photographs that did not depend on a lot of equipment at that time.
People didn't have the technology to be able to manipulate photographs or to create certain types of engagement with the images.
(14:09):
And what they did was to use some that those are ways of exposing material, exposing chemicals that will.
Will come primarily on sunlight, so develop the image, and I think that that is a combination of two different processes,
a cyanotype in the ground and what happens when you overlap those chemicals that they became very unpredictable.
(14:35):
So this is essentially impossible to to consistently each one of those elements of the book that are not actually indiscernible,
but which I mean, you cannot really replicate exactly alike, which is part of being a personal experience.
This particular one, I enhanced that aspect of not being quite replicable by adding the folds and the photo.
(15:00):
The paper made it be that the chemicals all around and get overlapping different different densities and that creates a different result.
Speaking of a realist, I appreciate the capacity of creating materials, organic principles.
(15:21):
Thank you, Jim. You can carry on. At one point, could we zoom in on that little chart in the corner that shows the documentation notes?
Any of those top left, up, right? Veiga.
(15:55):
Excellent. Yeah, those cross marks, actually, it is a bunch of reference to that danger, emotion and also Emily Dickinson,
because part of this book was motivated by a heavy by the book by her in which she expressed the desire to go to Brazil.
And it's because of the one thing that she was not able to do.
(16:18):
And that's that that touches me very deeply, because I have in my life access to artistic expression and a community that keeps me in New York.
But I miss home. So it is as if I have not.
Is this as if I do have a choice?
I made the choice I made up to be here and to do my artwork and the prices that I'm going to move to from my background, from my home family session.
(16:46):
But I was also thinking, when you mentioned that the book is in the shape of an envelope,
I was thinking about Dickinson's envelope fragment in fragments.
Right. Envelope puzzle and how you've created something that really resonates with that,
this collection of art that is also functioning as a documentation of its own medium of of creation and of transformation.
(17:09):
Precisely. And how that and how that enduring and how that had such a such a meaning,
such a layer of meaning that was not even welcome as can speak for what was expected.
But the repercussions of her thinking into our lives, into my personal life is over.
The emotion that I find, it just makes my hair kind of raised in the sense.
(17:33):
So it's Kevin. What was one aspect of this book that that.
(18:05):
That is part of the book in itself, was that I had to work really hard to stop doing that because there was always material to be spoken of.
I started off with just a few pages and it kept on growing because of the circumstances, because of the situation.
There is a is matu that there was actually never intended to be there to start with.
(18:28):
And that became part of it because. Because the urgency, the pressing, the the charge of the moment,
maybe that was just impossible to leave behind and it could have carried on working on it, that just had to at some point.
And so you have to move on to something else as supposed to stay on endlessly growing this on projects they often don't speak about colourfulness.
(18:53):
Just one thing I'm sorry to interrupt that little figure that is embedded within the text on a previous page,
there was a very little oval shaped figure embedded within the text.
And I think that's really a lovely thing. It's not easy to see from afar, but we we were we could look closely at the photo.
(19:17):
That is that is one of my tricks to express difficulty and anguish and and the fact that reality is somewhat not quite real and palpable.
This it's it's meant to be this way is hard to read for a reason.
This is a dream in which at some point towards the end of the dream, there was a silver leopard and some of the line of it there.
(19:41):
And that image, if you can lift the face just ever so slightly so you can see that image is like a shimmering, shimmering print of like.
Yeah, it's hard to see. And that's intentional if you have the book in front of you.
And that's part of what it means to interact with the artwork that each person is going to have its own experience on.
(20:03):
It is a little animal in there. It's a cat. It's a cat.
It's a big leopard. Yeah,
it's intended to be that you can see it in a particular position if you're in a very distinct relationship to the page and have the light bounces,
which is the fear that I get when I'm waking up in the morning and I dream profusely and I have to
(20:24):
declare to my mind the regular basis to get rid of all the sort of emotions that come with my dreams.
And that is what comes to be this, the sense of trying to focus on what is important and let go of what is just creating anxiety.
In a way, that's what the difficulty of reading that image comes up to the.
(20:50):
Bookmarks are very particular in that way,
it's not the kind of art the world responds to by being exposed to the kind of art that one's response to, by being intimate with.
And I I understand that that creates certain difficulties that this day and age.
Because not many people will be able to touch this book, but I strongly believe in the power of the one.
(21:15):
And so one of the few people that will touch the book that will create that they will create something that is authentic,
that is even applicable in a way that's part of the logic of the envelope to write what you put in an envelope is not intended for everybody.
Exactly who read it has a recipient.
And so there's always something about the intimacy of an envelope that invites that kind of singular experience, not the.
(21:51):
Is there anything else that you'd like me to show I the screen?
Now, maybe we can just talk about the colourful private. There less about.
Settlement victims have an opportunity to I looked at it, I read the text of this, I mean,
your discussion of this is interesting to me because because I only saw the photographs of the book that were sent to me from the plan.
(22:19):
And so I probably spent more time reading the text than I did, but also just because I'm wildly ignorant when it comes to these questions of process.
So this is really educational for you. You talk about all of this, but this was this was very interesting to me,
in part because it seems like on the one hand and acknowledgements page and on the other hand,
(22:41):
a kind of documentation of how many different people are involved in producing a book like
this and how they each have their own emotional investments in different parts of the book,
the binder, the printer, the artist. You has an amazing community that comes out on this page for me.
I don't know if that tallies with your wonderful with your experience of it, but that is a bit of a nod to.
(23:08):
So the distinction between craftsmanship and artistry, which for me are one thing,
and then the banker, the painter, and there are still the same person,
and that is the play that I do trust, the California,
I'm shifting the highlight between the process and the creation of the and integrating that, as I call it, fun.
(23:30):
Just to give a little background, the colourful is, as I said,
an acknowledgement that technically is what comes at the end of the book describing where the book was made and what the materials are used.
And it's something that functions as a bibliographical reference.
In this particular case, I extrapolated quite a lot from that because I was under the influence of a bunch of different colour forms that I had read,
(23:56):
particularly Walter Hammoudeh, that we have a show of his work.
So that's why what was right and colourful.
And then he would be very playful if he said of talking about the process you talk about or you think about,
you just kind of shifted around to whatever he could.
And the reason why he did that, because he's the artist and he has the power to determine the outcome of any of those pages.
(24:19):
In this particular case, I was very inspired by for another episode,
which is the Portuguese poet that spoke in very different languages and a bunch of defence,
over 70 different writing styles, and each one of them was its own character.
And that is the point of me shifting the focus from the artist to the painter to the binder because they're all one person.
(24:42):
And there were also other people that came forward in other circumstances that have
added to a layer of the content of this book and the production of it in itself.
It's also a reference to several different places in nature, to Emily,
something positive or books that have read and poetry that have come my way or things that I had written in different ways.
(25:07):
Yeah, it is. It's complex. It's it's not behaving well.
It's a of music and it has is like a wild creature that had loads of its own, its own context.
It's also the one part of the book that. My name's Charles.
In reality, other than the redacted pages, and it's intended to be that it can be taken away for the book.
(25:30):
So in essence, this book could have no identity for one page because it's not bound to the book.
If we're to take that one page out of the book doesn't have an identity.
The book doesn't belong to or was not, in fact made by anyone in particular.
It could be the voice of a bunch of people who have been through the circumstance that I have been through.
(25:52):
It has that that that omission. But also, when the page was just moved, the read underneath it,
it's like discovering a crime scene or something and finding blood splatter under underneath the collar.
Yeah. See it. Right. Those are those are clues to some kind of mystery.
(26:12):
Ah yeah. I haven't I haven't processed that those things in terms of a desired outcome.
Those are my goals. But a lot of things came into being in the process of making the book and the bones of the story bones
with the sense of the emotion that I'm trying to convey and with the process of making it look at itself.
But yeah, not many people will remove that, but there will to remove that, we will have that experience, which is open to continuing.
(26:42):
Sansonetti. William.
(27:03):
Is there anything else that you'd like me to show before your shift to the front
cover again so I can speak a little bit of the materials that are in there?
A few different elements in that and and they are elements, they are not a representation of the element of the element in itself,
(27:26):
the gates of Brown that look like pointing out the words of that to the what evidence?
Those are woodblock. Those are pieces from things that I have sanded and embedded in the cover.
And a little bit under the word evidence. There is a streak of mother of Pearl that is, again, the element itself, not a representation of the.
(27:51):
Part of that is to highlight how important it is for me and I guess for the of people experience the work and responding to it,
there is a physicality of it that it is my life that is being exposed.
There is my presence here that has been either questioned or accepted in a way is not a representation of it, is the thing in itself.
(28:16):
And then that might be made books for 10 years now, so 18 years old and this book might have been the one that had been the most vulnerable of at all.
It's probably but it is certainly that it was difficult to make. It was difficult to write.
It was difficult to find very challenging, and it was very difficult to find.
(28:38):
And I did not expect that difficulty. There was something that came as a revelation, how challenging it was to put myself through that process,
even though I have experienced with all the techniques the content made it to be,
there was another layer of eternal struggle to come to diving into a past in a way.
(29:02):
So, yeah, that the the the roughness of those layers of leather that had been saved the way in the way things kind of fell apart.
Speaking of that,
speaking about that that I mentioned of having to go through something that was literally visceral and speaking from a place of great vulnerability.
(29:24):
So it. Well, there is a kind of extraordinary tension between the personal and personal in this book,
so those moments where you've redacted your name or your name is on the phone, but it can be.
Right. And this book could be the product of anybody's experience.
But on the other hand, the text in the book contains very detailed descriptions of physical injuries that you sustained.
(29:52):
Accidents fit in.
And so I really admire that kind of kinship that set up in the book between thinking anybody could have spoken or written or created this,
crafted it into existence, and then the particularity of belonging to one person and one person's body.
Yeah, that's a very astute observation in the.
(30:16):
I think I think it goes with the book to maybe bounce back to the next stage.
That's wonderful. So I think we are going to have a bit of a tour, a mini tour of the Centre for Picards.
Hello, everyone, my name is Carina Reynolds and the executive director of the Centre for Book Arts.
(30:43):
Thank you, Merv, and for that wonderful walk through of your book.
It's amazing to hear you speak about it in depth. They've been watching this and to being over.
I mean, I think almost I been I've been watching this happen over 10 years now.
I think that's about how long we've known each other, but so wonderful.
(31:06):
So thank you for sharing that with us. So we are here at Centre for Book Arts.
A was founded in nineteen seventy four by the artist Richard Manski.
He started the organisation with the idea that artists in New York City needed a
(31:26):
space to have access to the tools and materials that you need to produce books.
And if you can imagine being in New York City, it's actually quite hard if you're living in a sixth floor, walk up to have your own.
(31:47):
Let me give you a view outside of our window here.
So this is what it's like here in New York, and this is the type of equipment that we have.
So right now, we're standing in our print shop in New York City.
And one of the first things you might notice are all of these beautiful or very chaotic, skinny drawers.
(32:20):
This is our letterpress print shop. And each of these drawers contains its own font of type.
We have over six hundred and fifty typefaces here at Seeb or six hundred and fifty fonts.
And each one of these drawers has its own little thing here.
(32:41):
And this is going to be actually pick up something that's a little more recognisable, very hard to see.
They're going to focus anyways, each one of these little things here has its own letter.
So when an artist comes to Seeb and they start to work in our print shop, one of the first things they learn about is how to set type.
(33:06):
And this is one of the key processes that onna used in her project, body of evidence.
So you're all familiar with, let's say, a word processing or email programmes where you're able to easily switch from Bould to Italic,
(33:26):
from Comic Sans to York Times or two times Roman.
And here, instead of easily switching back and forth, you have to pull a whole nother draw.
You have to pull and you have to set and pick up each one of those individual pieces and you put them together.
So on pulled out a really wonderful treat for us here, which is actually some of the type that she set for body of evidence.
(33:53):
So this is that page here again that is showing us.
It has that beautiful, iridescent, very subtle image.
And you can see the type here. It's all letterpress print. It was printed on one of these presses right here.
This is called a Vanderhook proofing process. It's a semi automatic SIMMI manual letter press that was originally developed
(34:23):
to prove also in a word like Microsoft Word and and word processing software,
you're able to easily find and catch mistakes here.
You have to take this type and put it on this press, then print it into it and then read it and make sure that everything's fine.
(34:47):
So that is something that on did for every single copy of this book.
Each of these letters here is handled that by her upside down and backwards and then set up on the press, printed and approved and then printed again.
One of my favourite things about watching the production of this book was that I would
(35:12):
often come into the studio while I was working in the morning or in the evening,
and she would be set up on one of these presses as if this one.
Yeah. Here, I'll show you which press it was, this one here.
So she would often be standing right behind the press, working, having these huge sheets of paper, and they would just be rolling through the press.
(35:39):
And it was always it's almost meditative process, which I really loved.
One of the amazing things that Quba is able to offer to our artists that come in and use our spaces is that we now finally,
after many years, which was, I think, helpful at the very end, while you're doing your colourful,
(36:01):
maybe we have a type catalogue which shows where every typefaces is organised by cabinet.
So if you discover something and you want to know what it is, then you have this here typeface.
If you're looking for something particular and point size if you're looking for something in a particular size.
And that all corresponds to also a type specimen book.
(36:27):
So we do have an incredible variety of typefaces at Centre for Book Arts,
things that are incredibly unique that you would have never seen anywhere else.
I mean, some of them are one or two known fonts in the world of the same typeface, which is kind of amazing.
(36:50):
So Anahad had a lot of options to choose from while she was working on a body of evidence.
So just quickly to tell you a little bit more about how our studios work here at Zebo, we are free and open to the public.
So anyone who wants to learn how to print or make a book can come to Quba, take a class,
(37:15):
learn how to use these presses, learn how to set type, and then they can come in.
And really right now, Monday through Saturday, 11 to four, and they can actually just get dirty.
So we recognise that the fact that you can't have one of these presses in your apartment,
that you can't have a thirty six inch guillotine in your apartment. And so we make that available to the artists.
(37:42):
We also have six to 10 artist in residence per year. They stay here for an.
The year they get to use our presses, they have keys onna is also a key holder.
So it's not uncommon to see her with the artist in residence early in the morning or late at night working on something spectacular.
(38:03):
And you really get to immerse yourself. So we have studio programmes here.
We have classes, we have artist residencies, exhibitions,
which you may have noticed as I was walking into the print shop, as well as an incredible collection.
So with that, I will pass it back to you all.
(38:25):
And thank you for coming to visit me in New York and see here.
So I think we'll just chat a little bit about the book.
That's all right with you.
I mean, I'm so fascinated in here because I usually see books that are much more conventional and on the other side of the process.
(38:48):
So I feel like this is a body of evidence is full of so many different voices, not just your voice,
but the voices of friends, text messages you show Emily Dickinson, as you mentioned, Pascola, William James, Rebecca Solnit.
(39:09):
How did you match those voices to plants?
How did you decide how to visualise different people's contributions to the typical people?
Came as part of the process of the material that is behind the most of it.
So it will cause to different voices, essentially my voice and everybody else's voices.
(39:35):
My voice is normally Sensorites and I Taric, and when I'm speaking of a quotation of somebody else's,
I'm using a service found that is a moment and the context of it comes from what has been under in Rebekah's on its case.
For instance,
I'm speaking about how our writing refers to this dimension of wandering and discovery and the process of process of layering emotions on it.
(40:05):
And that is what you see in the back of her voice. In a sense, I could have changed.
I could have used a variety of different typefaces because of the craziness and it's available.
But I I prefer to be more conservative about it because I didn't want to create a company that could have that can be an
(40:29):
effect of using that many different typefaces that you people feel as if they are in a room that has a lot of clamouring.
And it's a fantasy about a situation the way that certain things would translate in certain ways and different states.
So a visual visual clutter will create a sense of social injustice.
(40:50):
And some people have read about and that I wanted to create them.
I want to be able to control the temperature of the book, so to speak, in a way that's fascinating.
Why those why those voices? So we talked a little bit already about Dickinson's poetry and the sort of effect it has.
Why William James, why Rebecca Solnit, Ypersele? What is it about these interlocutor's that that spoke to you?
(41:16):
Those are passages that I have copied the midterms while I was reading those books or exposer statements review you.
Those are particular passages that I spoke to the moment that I was reading aloud.
And that has an aspect of randomness to it that I find that just fascinating.
But at that particular moment,
I have access to that particular piece of information that was so crucial to where exactly that is the education process to participate in the book.
(41:46):
There are also there's also an aspect of affinity.
We know James has done great studies about the spirituality, psychology of spirituality, so to speak,
and in and the complexities of the discovery of a process of discovery, which is something that I speak of.
(42:10):
Rebecca Solnit is one of my greatest heroes.
Basically everything that she says could have been written about my life in a number of people's lives that I know of.
But in particular for this book, I, I not only welcomed her and embraced her perspective of being able to embrace the unknown and welcome the welcome,
(42:36):
the variables way for another person again.
And then he speaks in Portuguese, which is something that I want to touch.
And the way he is now growing up in Brazil and being exposed to literature classes gave me the sense that he was a kind of a melancholy character,
not very sexy at all.
(42:58):
My my colleagues with such opinions kind of had to be sort of difficult person to deal with this this hurdle we have to cross through.
I never got the feeling for him. I always thought that he was somewhat cheerful in his very negative perspective.
But this approach to life that had an element of element of faith in it.
(43:22):
You speak that throughout our own internal darkness there will be a moment of light and there will be a moment of revelation that is given up,
which was always there.
Well, there are interesting moments in the book itself where you think a situation that you are in is going to turn out very, very bad.
(43:46):
So when you there is a a story that is narrated where you fall and you have a concussion and you
have to go to the hospital and you're worried about both the police and the medical system.
But it turns out everyone is sort of wonderfully sympathetic and you're really well cared for,
which is not what one expects as you're building up to that story.
(44:08):
So do you feel like the bull in in in talking about the politics of immigration or the politics of migration,
do you feel like it does have those moments of optimism where the structures we think are supposed to address actually what you actually work for,
you are actually provide this really strange source of care in a way that New York City always took care of me?
(44:33):
Yeah, and that is something that I think is particular to New York City. I haven't been on many places.
I came from my hometown Salvadori to New York, and I stayed here the rest of my life.
So I'm not that familiar with what happens in other places as opposed to I know from experience.
But I have an excuse me.
So I thought that New York I was in New York to New York and the as an organisation, which is an extremely progressive organisation,
(44:58):
has welcomed the other and has provided for the other and embraced and accommodated the other Detroit some folks.
And it is a tricky suplex. New York Police Department, the vast majority of the people that I know have had negative connexions, but somehow.
(45:18):
I always had good luck with that.
Good luck to the extent that they let me off the hook a number of times, out of, I suspect, again, a sense of protection.
And that is something that is inherent tension between welcoming and questioning presence at the same time.
(45:40):
Well, and also one of the things that you say in the book that really moved me was
that the language or the category of immigrant doesn't quite work for you,
but neither does the category of expatriate and that you feel like you sit somewhere in between or perhaps somewhere outside of or nowhere or nowhere.
(46:01):
Right. And I was just curious to hear you speak a little more about that kind of ongoing.
Right, not knowing what category of other one belongs to.
It's something that I had to settle with to come to terms with.
I think it's very distinctive to human nature to want to know where you'll find yourself
(46:22):
in a particular place and settle with it and feel confident that that's where you belong.
And I haven't gotten into that, even though I feel that I am here and I'm fully presently here to the extent that what I do is basically.
Like, imagine that because of that book that is part of me,
that both the Canada associate myself while at the same time speaks of an experience that is universal,
(46:49):
I hope they do something about this,
something about not knowing what to expect that has made me and a friend of mine had called the long term uncertainty.
And they went through I went to moments ahead of anxiety for a few years that was borderline totalising.
(47:11):
And then I managed to overcome it and come to a point where I'm quite functional
within my within the parameters of my anxiety as long as I respected and respected.
And I think that that is a character that is a result of understanding that.
(47:32):
At the same time, I have a degree of control, but I am and I don't want to say at the mercy because it's sounds like a dramatic,
but I am I am under the influence of circumstances that completely out of my control and have come to peace with it.
I've come to have come to operate within them without letting me paralyse me in the way that it does.
(48:00):
I mean, it's also obviously been an opportunity for a kind of aesthetic pleasure as a great deal.
As much as there is pain in this book and as much as there's agitation, there's also a great deal of beauty that is that springs from that, I think.
And that's what I that's what I liked about about the book that it is it's a body of evidence that doesn't point to any one particular conclusion.
(48:27):
Right. It keeps all of these questions about the long game, about identity,
about what an individual's relationship is to these larger structures around them.
It keeps all of those questions animated. It doesn't it doesn't settle them at once and for all.
And there is no settling. Right? There is no there is no end in sight to the question.
That's what can progress mankind's progress. Right.
(48:49):
I think we should maybe take some questions from the audience. Yes, there are some questions and some of them are very technical about the process.
And some of them are about the book and the life of the book after your creation.
So just to summarise a couple of them asking about what are the technically challenging facts of of that book,
(49:14):
what were the technically challenging aspects of that book to make? What was the most challenging?
And then within that, perhaps a specific question,
what was the process for creating that iridescent medallion effect with the great curiosity about the.
I certainly struggled with the shape of it working when we are working with an addition,
(49:39):
we wanted to be somewhat consistent through such a thing as a variable edition.
But ideally, we are working with not ideally my intention of it.
I mean, those things are all so subjective. So what is the artistic profile of it?
In my case, I wanted to be consistent.
I it's a tension between just embracing the organic aspect of it, that it's kind of wild and determines its own outcome,
(50:05):
but wanted it to be somewhat controllable and be something that I recognised as my own.
And that belongs within itself and it reflects on the mother. The shape was hard to keep that shape consistent throughout the book.
It was a very physically demanding process.
There were there were many layers of many moments of different cuts.
(50:30):
And what's called a G had to create some sort of a.
All to cut through and to replicate that many times it's an additional nine and the book grew quite large.
I did not expect when they said go for that shape, I did not know what I was getting myself into it because I didn't realise how big the book was
(50:52):
going to be as as a reference to material that kept coming and kept them incorporated to the book.
So it was like a mountain that kept on growing.
I figured that something and then I more happened and I have to figure something else out and stay with the process of it.
It was very labour intensive.
The shaking itself and the covers are what's called a like a. process in which you basically strip the finished out of the leather.
(51:16):
And that exposes the sweet side of the leather.
And that's why this weight is very much like a sponge, things you attach to in a way,
that's how the three barracks and other elements are so seamlessly fitting because that becomes a.
Scheme that some people should remember, that something that is also part of why the book speaks of the circumstances in and of itself,
(51:46):
it's a scheme that had been created to absorb different materials in a way, and that is technically challenge is labour intensive.
It's just gruesome. It's very messy, but also very rewarding because it responds to it, responds to it.
I think people responded to it in a level that is more visceral than they would otherwise.
(52:09):
The iridescence, iridescence decency on that cat image, which is a leopard, is a effect of the paper, actually,
that the little paper that is attached to it and gunky is not made out of wood, is made out of bacon.
Press press that has been pounded into it has become like it's something that is very soubry and thin and malleable.
(52:37):
It doesn't behave like ape, but you cannot really glue it like paper. You cannot really teach it like it is paper, but it's not.
And he has a very fine, but it's more like it behaves like silk.
It's like if you were to think of silk in paper form, that's what companies and typically letter press does not get a lot of metallics.
(52:59):
It's a very opaque system. But with gum you can get that response to light in a way because it has its own luminosity.
This is probably so obvious to you and to anyone else who works with these materials, but I'm suddenly really struck by how the natural,
the nonhuman animal, the mechanical and the human all come together in the process of making this book.
(53:24):
Yeah, that's wonderful. We spoke a lot about the printing part of it, but the bindings it's on.
Right. Forgive me for saying that the mind is its own animal, so.
Whenever there's a question for you, what's the potential for books like this in teaching?
(53:46):
Well, it's it's so funny because right before we started this webinar,
I was saying that I have to bring my students to the battalion when I teach Emily Dickinson to look at your to look at your book,
because I think the potential well, I think there are two really important things.
I think, first, the potential is that the same way I'm having an educational experience here,
(54:08):
talking to my students can have the same educational experience and they can understand how the the text of a book cannot
be and should not be divorced from a consideration of the materials that go into making and printing and finding the book.
So just to be more historical in my teaching, I feel very inspired by this.
(54:34):
But then the second potential, I think, is to show how 19th century texts can have these extraordinary twenty first century resonances and to show
my students that we can think Emily and onna together and understand and what I want women in there to do.
(54:54):
I would teach you three together and understand what it means to talk about the long game,
what it means to talk about citizenship and what it means to talk about the nation as
such and how books give us a kind of insight into those categories in this immediate,
embodied, physical and intimate, intimate way.
(55:18):
So this is very inspiring for thinking about my course planning in Michaelmas term.
Wonderful. And I suppose we only have a few seconds to finally ask a lot of curiosity about.
Of course, this is a book you've said, which is and very few copies. How many copies have you produced and is there a practical maximum?
(55:40):
And the there is a there is also a question from our keeper of special collections here at the Bodleian.
Do you tailor this for the recipients? He's interested to know is the copy that's coming to the Bodleian specially tailored for the library?
It's an addition of nine. The limitation on that is that it's too much work.
(56:06):
It's just insane amount of work. Does it take you to make each one?
I can't measure it in time. I have to work on this process and project for about five years.
So it's all painted now. And by the dates me, the pages are printed in folded in shape.
Now, what I have to do before each one gets out of the house is to make the covers and operate the coverage of the book itself.
(56:28):
And that takes me about a month between making copies and making the box at this stage.
And I have been working on it for five years.
So it's quite it's not five years exclusively dedicated to that, but it's it's labour-intensive in a way that I can't really get paid for.
That is the kind of labour that this labour of love you put it on.
And if something is going to work out in the end, then you're going to move on.
(56:52):
But it's not to be asked about your particular expenses I, I have been working on then as the comes.
So I cannot say that I tailored to each one of the colourfulness personal lives, so the book would be commissioned by whoever is the purchaser of it.
(57:13):
But it is I didn't say I couldn't say that I made it for the book that your copy is your copy.
But I can say that the copy that you have was the copy that is produced in that particular time.
And that speaks of where or was it almost emotionally,
because there are things that I do to the letter that if I am somewhat angry or not rested enough, we all reflect in a way or the other.
(57:39):
They are copies that will probably have a particular have more of a kind of a comb centred
language itself and a cops that would betray more emotional than than I had meant it to you.
Thank you. Thank you so much for coming.
(58:00):
Thank you. Thank you to our our audience and the questions which I'm afraid we've we've not been able to answer all of them,
but we will save those and convey this on again.
And thank you to our hosts, the Centre for Book Arts in New York, to Kareem Rennolds for that wonderful tour.
(58:21):
To my colleagues, Joe Maddox, who is handling the book in the public library,
and Steph Springboro, who has been hosting us on the same call behind the scenes very expertly.
And we do hope to see you all again at other events, other online like this,
which is such a great way to connect across the Atlantic or of course, in person.
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The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.