elsewheres, ink on Japanese fabric, Spanish thread, cotton netting (2019) by nikki fragala barnes

“This work is an artist book of fibers — the pages are a Japanese fabric so fragile it can be torn by hand, echoing skin. Threads and nets bind and tangle meaning as well as material. This work is multilingual in its origin and its expressed languages. It extends a paradox of interiors and exteriors as, globally, humans confront an experience of physical entrapment caused by virulent replication. This net/work is circuitous — a fibrous circuitry that falls short of connection and relies on a hybrid space to achieve completion. A rupturing, legible and asemic.

Located in a specific temporal context, this work engages with nationalisms, immigrant detainment, and power differentials within languages, charged with imperial oppression.

As an installation artist whose practice is collaborative, participatory, and place-based, I find this present apocalypse frustrating and generative. Whatever we depict as product/ive within our historical moment questions impotence, absence, and instability. More importantly, I must ask, what does my art accomplish? My practice embraces the expanding complexity of wider truths and resists reduction in text and form. “-nikki fragala barnes

Paper and ink on metal spike, 2021

“Describing this past year as a struggle would be an understatement. My pre-existing issues with depression and anemia were exacerbated by lockdown and feeling trapped in a home that did not feel like a home due to never-ending construction. Breaking both of my feet during the pandemic also didn’t help. I felt like my life narrowed. My various interests and activities began to fall away as I lost the emotional and physical capacity to dedicate myself to more than one thing. That often resulted in neglecting even my family and focusing only on work so at least I would not lose my job. For Mother’s Day, my daughter came home with an “All About Mom” worksheet where she had described everything about me in terms of how much time I spent in my room and enjoyed sleeping. It was so deeply upsetting to me and was my inspiration for “A Year of Excuses” which consists of 365 excuses for why I haven’t participated in life this past year. This piece was also created in a shame-fueled manic episode on the very last day submissions were due, and I believe it would have been inappropriate to execute it in any other way.”

-Whitney Broadaway

Pandemic Diaries: An Outbreak of [Racism] by Holly Jefferies

Ink, thread, leather, and wood on quilted fabric (Four Volumes) 2021

Holly Jefferies’ contemporary art and writing examines the controversial issues of race relations, diversity and inclusion, social justice, and how the narratives about these issues are examined and told today. Through experimental creative writing techniques of extraction, erasure, and stream of consciousness, Jefferies employs the use of language–and the absence of language–to reimagine current and historical narratives so that a new version of the narrative can be told. Within the new narrative, Jefferies’ voice, along with the voices within history, can be seen through a new lens. Jefferies’ body of work includes fabric art scrolls and books which include her experimental creative writing and text, which aims to dismantle one-sided perspectives and expose a new version of truth. The finished writing is printed on fabric, stitched together, and quilted into a visual version of the narrative. The stitches hold the narrative together until it wears with time, just like truth, or the absence of truth, within the narrative. In the Pandemic Diaries: An Outbreak of [Racism] fabric book scrolls, Jefferies exhibits a timeline of the Covid-19 pandemic from the perspective of racism.

The book consists of volumes, and each volume can be hung as a scroll, or attached together as one book. The viewer is invited to immerse themselves in the work and experience an exercise in reimagining the narrative through what they see, and what they do not see.

Recycled cereal box, paper towel rolls, pen and ink, watercolor, gouache, recycled envelope liners, tissue paper, washi tape, recycled paper bags.

“Resisting the urge to go into my home/cave and settle down for a long nap/hibernation during the pandemic, I decided to create something everyday with the materials I had at hand. Observing the natural world outside my door, I ventured into an imaginary paper forest. Everyday I would gather inspiration on my daily morning walks and come back and construct woodland creatures and their homes with paper tubes and cardboard and paint, telling the stories they shared with me. Now I am delighted to share this secret world with you.”- Jenifer Patrick

Night Thoughts, Drum leaf binding with Inkjet prints on Stonehenge paper, 7 3/4 " x 11" closed; 11" x 15" open; 2021

“As both a book artist and illustrator, my work explores the scholarship of Filipino American identity through artist’s books and illustrations as media with applications in cultural discourse. The work often addresses my own biography as well as representing individuals of Filipino descent. In my work, I utilize image and text to construct my own visual language that engages and challenges the viewer to consider the notions of identity.

My approach to artist’s books involves intensive research of both form and content. I often use traditional book forms to make fine artist’s books. I apply both historical and contemporary bookbinding techniques to create work, produced with intense attention to the material. My most recent artistic practice has led me to incorporate digitally drawn illustrations in my artist’s books.
Night Thoughts is an artist book that was created in response to a prompt given to members of the Book Arts Guild of Central Florida. While the events of the coronavirus pandemic were at times overwhelming, I had to protect my mental state with rest. Sleep was the most challenging of my resilience because of anxiety. Night Thoughts is a short poem revealing my intimate contemplation before sleep and the reflective moments of the day.” -Chris Saclolo

Based on Your Current Trajectory by Rachel Simmons

Relief, screen and digital prints on paper and board with adhesive label paper, punch labels, gesso & marker. Illustrations and text adapted from Stephen Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.” Includes a self-closing wrapper enclosure with magnetic clasp.

“This book project began during the early days of the global pandemic as a meditation on the passing of time. In 2021, I returned to the book after reading Stephen Hawking’s theories of space-time and time travel, discovering the concept of the twin paradox—which asks what would happen if one identical twin departs Earth to travel near light speed through space, while the other twin remains on Earth, aging normally. How do they experience time differently? How does time change their identities and relationship as twins? Adapting Hawking’s language, I created a narrative about a time traveler seeking to understand the invisible laws of space-time as they search for their lost twin, a story based on the real-life disappearance of my youngest brother, who hasn’t been seen since 2018. The concept of the Elsewhere, an unseen space, neither in the past or the future, is offered as his possible location. Aesthetically this book brings together my love of experimental mixed media printmaking, hand-punched lettering and graphic illustrations through an interactive flag book structure.”

-Rachel Simmons

Cover Your Mouth by Jacob Z. Wan, face mask, digital print on paper with thread, 2020

“Being Chinese and gay, I explore sexuality, relationship, and balance from personal experience through mixed-media book arts. As a contemporary bookbinder, I craft conceptual books as expressions of emotions, sequences of consciousness, and collections of moments. By experimenting with the materiality of the page, thread, and cover, I deploy personal memories to discover the identity, portray solitude, and celebrate the importance of oneself.

Cover Your Mouth is a mixed media book made with a mask as the cover and a long page with stitches. COVID-19 has affected 2020 with tragedies and inconveniences, yet President Trump has not taken the pandemic seriously and blamed China for everything. I printed out the speech from President Trump and stitched out texts with red threads to re-edit the narratives. By alerting the texts, the speech reveals the truth and facts of the pandemic instead of blaming others with hatred.” -Jacob Z. Wan