Historical In(ter)ventions

If you took away the white space, what would the black text do? What would it say? 

Are there Other ways of reading a text? Of reading and writing history?

What does erasure look like?

My collection of altered history book sculptures is an ongoing project that explores the boundaries and limitations of 'the book' as a bound container of fixed truths. 

Black thread is used as a rhetorical device, as a metaphor for written text and a marker of Otherness--and new voices.  

The braided, twisted, knotted  material challenges what has and has not been said--erasing, redacting, editing the written content. The organic forms act as an extension of the content and make silence visible. These works challenge the ideas and ideologies embedded in the texts, reinterpret master narratives, and create new possibilities for reading and writing history. 

Started in 2011, the works range from small hand held books to large scale public installations.

Romance of Empire, 2019. 

Multimedia installation.  Romance of Empire. B. Willson, 1908. Photo: M. Giesbrecht