More Lines Exploring Space
Sumi Perera, UK
| More Lines Exploring
Space; Sumi Perera RE, Redhill, Surrey,
UK, 2012 Conceived as a tribute to the fateful bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street that destroyed, books, booksellers' and book lovers' lives, this book is an affirmation to the inability to silence or destroy the power of the written word. Paying homage to both Arabic and Western reading practices, the book can be read in a boustrophedon fashion, from either right to left or vice versa. Lines reduce in number if read in one direction, reflecting the destruction following the aftermath of the bombing. When read in the opposite direction, the lines increase, reflecting the collaborative efforts of bibliophiles, poets, artists expressing a united voice to celebrate the power of books and words. Like much of Perera's work, the final editorial control of the piece is handed over to the reader. The letters and text, which have been replaced by solid lines within the book, escape the confines of the book and lie scattered around the work, echoing the confusion and disarray created from the bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street, and the literal and metaphorical fragments that the survivors were left to pick up. The reader is invited to select and assimilate their own narrative by re-arranging, adding or subtracting from the given letters. Published by 
EDITIONS; Dimensions: 19 x 9.5 x 2 cm; Medium: open bite acid etching,
aquatint, embossing on black Somerset paper 300gsmSumi Perera. MA Camberwell College. MSc & MPhil London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. MBBS Faculty of Medicine, Colombo, Sri Lanka. Awards: 1st Prize, Seoul International Bookarts 2005, Birgit-Skiold Award-ICA, London 2005; Best Overall Design (NPB)-Society Bookbinders International Competition 2009; Melville Charitable Trust Award (1st prize) at SHELTER, USA; SCU Award, Australia. Public Collections: Tate Britain; Victoria & Albert Museum; Yale Centre for British Art, USA; Guanlan Museum, China; Grafisk vaerksted-Naestved, Denmark; Sakima Art Museum, Japan; printROOM, Rotterdam; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery; Ashmolean Museum Oxford; Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Egypt; SCU Collection, Australia; Brooklyn Library, USA; ULUS Collection, Belgrade, Serbia; British Library. www.saatchionline.com/sumiperera sumi_perera@hotmail.com |