My books “Don’t retouch anything!” and “Wedding series 1819-1998” are on show. Paper from 1800’s Swedish Royal Announcements, ink, contact prints and a zirconia ring are some of the materials used.

Pages from “Wedding series 1819-1998”, mixed media, 2017

Pages from “Wedding series” 1819-1998, mixed media, 2017

Pages from “Don’t retouch anything”, mixed media, 2017

Pages from “Don’t retouch anything”, mixed media, 2017

Bound and Unbound IV is an international juried altered book exhibition at University Libraries, at the University of South Dakota:

“As artists, I believe, one of our roles in society is to protect and foster culture. Altered books seemingly exist as a contradiction to this; destroying the old to foster in the new, by using a cultural icon, the book, as a delivery system for new information outside the bounds of its original intent. I would hope that all the artists in this show hold a certain amount of reverence for the object they are destroying or obfuscating. I believe it is selfish to claim our personal expression is more valid than the information expressed in the book. But, as the book slowly declines as our society become more and more digital, can this mode still be relevant in today’s constant barrage of information? I believe these artworks act as a surrogate for these books, creating monuments and symbols that try to capture the logic of a book in the aesthetic of art.

We are asked as viewers to contemplate these works in consideration of the objects they were born of. The title of this show is Bound and Unbound, a reference to how books are assembled and made. It is a reference to the object itself without considering the information within its pages. It is looking at the object of a book as its physical form: pages, registers, binding and cover. In the works that were selected for this show, I am curating what I believe to be a transformation from object to icon. These works are ruminations and ideations of what the book as an object has a chance to become once divorced from its original intent. Art in itself is a language outside of the letters and words. These works are examples of when a book goes beyond its contents and becomes more than a possession. Your favorite book is something beyond a written tome of increasingly important thoughts. It is something that you use to construct yourself: to become wiser, excited, smarter, faster, better informed, inspired and more empathetic. I see these themes in the works themselves. We look at the weaving that recreates a map on top of the book. The topography of the thread creating an alternate universe that we can only imagine travelling. This transformation is what this show is about to me. The object is reborn/transmuted/challenged. The reader is now asked to read a form. Bound and Unbound IV is the sum of its parts, an exhibition of books undone and put back together. ” – Eli Show, juror.

Artists from Australia, Denmark, England, Puerto Rico, Romania, and the United States are represented in this exhibition running from Aug. 21, 2017 until Jan.3, 2018. 

Their digital library is in the process of publishing photos here

More videos and photos will follow on Instagram