Breathe for Those Who Cannot
Ginger Burrell, USA
| Breathe for Those Who
Cannot: Ginger Burrell, Morgan Hill, CA,
USA, 2013 My work often deals with difficult issues such as death, violence, and political negligence. I am always impressed at the resilience of the human spirit, especially creativity. No matter the pain, suffering, anger or despair, humans cannot help but create. Breathe for Those Who Cannot speaks of the long history of destroying creativity, knowledge and intellect. Inevitably people in power feel threatened by communication, education and emotional connection. This artist's book explores the hope that by continuing to be creative and, when necessary recreative, we will not only honour those who have lost their lives, but also eventually defeat the idea that destroying books and art, writers and artists, readers and intellectuals is an acceptable way to gain power. I tried to imagine the remains of the car-bombed books on Al-Mutanabbi Street. After tearing and burning books of many languages I attempted to reassemble them into new books. Not separated into language or topic but rather reassembled as multi-lingual volumes of humanity and multicultural creativity. Bound together with the poem I wrote for the project, Breathe for Those Who Cannot is dedicated to those who continue to create, especially those who do so in fear of their own lives. Dimensions: 4” x 5”; Medium: Discarded, burnt and reassembled book pages, original poetry, Coptic stitch binding Ginger Burrell (BFA Fine Arts and Photography) teaches book arts at her home studio and at the Palo Alto Art Center. Her artists' books explore a range of topics from the personal, to the political, to the universal. She has exhibited nationally including the San Francisco Center for the Book, Abecedarian Gallery, Woman Made Gallery, and Bright Hill Press. Ginger's artists' books are included in special collections at Denison University, Indiana University, San Diego State University, SJSU, Texas Tech University, UC. www.gingerburrell.com ginger@rkg.com |