Something I have embraced here at the University of Edinburgh is the art of the handmade book. There is an entire community of people who love, collect and make handmade books. And their ideas of what a book
is are all over the place.
Take this recent exhibit by Artist-in-Residence Susie Wilson. If you look at the presentation in the College of Art library, it explains a bit about the project.
She talks about the marriage of the book and the human body - on the cellular level. Indeed, her latest project resembles what you might see under a microscope while studying human tissues. But what was truly stunning about this project was the book itself. While it could be folded up to fit in the box in the display case, it is meant to be viewed like this:
It goes
all the way up...
and all the way down five stories of the College of Art lobby.
Our ECA librarian Jane Furness and I have become friends (you know I love librarians!) and so I had the chance to meet Susie during the recent official opening of her project.
It was a treat to hear the vision behind this book from the artist herself. And although I've said it before, it's still such a joy to experience art taken so seriously in this art-embracing city. Because truly, who says what a book must be? It's the creative mind that
literally thinks outside the box.
Check out more of Susie's work
at her website.
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