ARTIST BOOK · 2024

Kinship

Cultural memory, absence, and the question of return.

Kinship considers the relationship between objects, the cultures they belong to, and the institutions that hold them. Its three compartments recall the arrangement of a museum display.

Nested boxes hold an ebony-covered book with passages from The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant. Slides pair responses to repatriation with a colonial map of Africa. A third compartment contains wooden forms cut with hieroglyphic symbols, making absence part of the experience.

Opening, lifting, and unfolding become ways to reflect on cultural heritage and the responsibility of returning it.

Edition 40 + five proofs
Dimensions Box: 11.5 × 11.5 × 4 in; book: 7.5 × 2 × 2 in
Materials Ebony, laser-cut Canson paper, linen thread, museum board, plexiglass, metallic gold paper, wood
Binding Coptic binding