Blue Books: Linda Ekstrom
Found books, thread, glue
Blue Books, 2021
Size varies according to arrangement
Before we open its cover, a book is already an object inherent with meaning and complexities. Reading is how we grapple with what our books are telling us; interpreting its text is the way we uncover and translate its meaning. Altered books, no longer readable in the conventional way, means readability is converted into another state, or another way of receiving the books information.
I work with books to make symbolic and iconographic associations, so that they might be read visually, apart from textual associations, or intellectual understandings. Can a tangle of words be interpreted? Can a book tightly wrapped in thread, and unable to be opened, be deciphered? A thread is a thin filament which may be entangled with other threads. A line of text is a thread of thought contained on paper. The word "read" is embedded in the word "thread." To wrap the book with thread moves the linearity of its text or thought from the book's interior space to its exterior form. Now, the book is read in visual and tactile ways. What is hidden becomes a catalyst for something new. The potency of the book's original meaning, now converted, remains in a state to be decoded through the body's senses.
Blue Books: Linda Ekstrom
Found books, thread, glue
Blue Books, 2021
Size varies according to arrangement
Before we open its cover, a book is already an object inherent with meaning and complexities. Reading is how we grapple with what our books are telling us; interpreting its text is the way we uncover and translate its meaning. Altered books, no longer readable in the conventional way, means readability is converted into another state, or another way of receiving the books information.
I work with books to make symbolic and iconographic associations, so that they might be read visually, apart from textual associations, or intellectual understandings. Can a tangle of words be interpreted? Can a book tightly wrapped in thread, and unable to be opened, be deciphered? A thread is a thin filament which may be entangled with other threads. A line of text is a thread of thought contained on paper. The word "read" is embedded in the word "thread." To wrap the book with thread moves the linearity of its text or thought from the book's interior space to its exterior form. Now, the book is read in visual and tactile ways. What is hidden becomes a catalyst for something new. The potency of the book's original meaning, now converted, remains in a state to be decoded through the body's senses.
