Nanette Wylde
On Judgment: the book of bully, 2012
Oil-based wood relief on Somerset Black Velvet.
Insides: Oil-based wood relief on Somerset Velvet.
4.625" x 5.75" x .5" closed. 4.625" x 54" open/extended. May be read as a codex.
Edition: 17.
This accordion fold book was created for An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street, a project of The Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition, a global book arts' response to the car bombing of Al-Mutanabbi Street in Baghdad on March 5, 2007. The project is curated by Beau Beausoleil and Sarah Bodman.
Pondering the sources and causes of the destruction of Al-Mutanabbi Street and what this act really was about, at its essence, creates more questions for me than it does provide answers. Considering parallels and relationships is one way of thinking through the problem.
In designing the book I wanted aspects of the form to communicate aspects of the complexity of the content, that are not overtly stated in the text. I chose wood relief because I wanted the look of the pages to have a hand-printed aesthetic to reflect the long history of books, the printed word, and the the street itself.
Beau Beausoleil, one of the co-founders of "An Inventory of Al-Mutanabbi Street," wrote the following about "On Judgment."
"Your book is a wonderful meditation on what happened on al-Mutanabbi Street, indeed on the many battered cultural streets of the world. At first the word bully bothered me, since I think of what happened as so much more frightening than that word. But the more I looked at your book, the more I let your lines sink in, the more I understood just how far back you had backed up the violence on and around al-Mutanabbi Street. The more I understood the importance of your book to the project.
Your questioning of even words themselves is a wonderful element to the book. And the production and design of it are beautiful.
It's a book that exhibit goers will think about well after they leave the exhibit. And the plain spoken text moves into one in a quiet but powerful way.
Questioning oneself is an important part of bearing witness, and you have done that admirably for all of us."
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Compass, 2012
Square flexigon structure, with wrapper.
Pigment on Moab Entrada.
6" x 6"
Edition: 36
Description: Compass takes form as a flexigon which is an unfolding book structure. On each of the four faces is a cardinal direction, layered with an image of a compass rose, and a compass-based quote from a significant/historical artist.
Compass was created for earth•science•art, an exhibition conceptualized by Lisa Hochstein based on collaborative pairings of USGS scientists from the Pacific Science Center in Santa Cruz, California and Bay Area artists. I was paired with coastal geologist and mapmaker Ann Gibbs.
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