ECHO
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ECHO is a sculptural artists’ book made of two interlocking leporellos with plywood covers. The book presents slivers of archival family photographs, separated by images of walls from Beirut and New York — the artist’s city of birth and her current home, respectively. The archival images portray fragments of life before displacement from Lebanon, in a home that no longer exists as such.
This book offers two readings, depending on if it is viewed flat or upright. When viewed page by page (flat), the viewer sees only a cropped version of a photograph — framed details such as a father’s interlocked hands, a distant view of Beirut from the balcony, a single rose in a metal vase. When viewed upright (or sculpturally) the pages create a lenticular effect, and the cropped images suddenly become whole.
Vacillating between past and present, concrete and abstract, “ECHO”contends with diasporic speculation and longing, and the tendency, as adults, to patch together dislocated childhood memories with anecdotes and familial belongings to construct comprehensible stories about the past.
PRODUCTION DETAILS
11.125 x 21.5 x 2 in - 2o pages
Cloth hinged leporello
Archival pigment prints
Spray painted plywood covers
COLOPHON
Edition of 6 + 2AP
Published by Small Editions
Printed and spray painted by Rhea Karam
Bound by hand by Sarah Smith
This title is held in the collections of:
The Museum of Modern Art
The Metropolitain Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University