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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Container Art Exhibit of Altered Books

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to visit an exhibit of Container Art at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver. One exhibit, called Hidden Knowledge, was built around the concept of an altered book.  I wish I had thought to take a camera, but unfortunately I did not.

The artist, Rachel Asche, altered twenty-five  Funk and Wagnell encyclopedias, and mounted them, page ends outwards, on white wall boards.  Each of the end pages had an object from nature embedded in it. These objects included a hard boiled egg, bones, twigs, shells and more.

Rachel has a picture of the altered books posted on her blog. In her picture, the books are arranged in a circular fashion and displayed on a table.  One comment compares them to a rolodex of knowledge.


The artist wrote:

The inspiration behind this work is the idea that knowledge can
be lost or forgotten when people no longer value it.
The encyclopedias represent the sum of human knowledge
contained in written form, while the found objects
represent information about the natural world.

You can see the picture and the blog post here:

Forgotten Knowledge: The Completed Set

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