Jack Ginsberg Centre for the Book Arts

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The Golden Years

Item date(s): 2013

Phillipa Haskins

Medium: Found book
Size: 100 x 150 x 220mm
Technique: Watercolour; Clay
Edition: Unique

Sub-type: Altered book

Place publication: Pietermaritzburg
Publisher: The artist
Exhibition 2017

Additional notes:
I am a MAFA graduate from UKZN, who fell in love with the book arts in my final years of study. The two works below are a part of the body of work created towards my MAFA, which dealt with the decay of books/knowledge through idleness, technology, and other influences. Each book used was specifically chosen for its title, and the work created based on this.

Reference note:
Books are often seen as 'good companions' but often neglected. Rats are seldom seen as such, but are quite at home in this book.

'The Golden Years' of books seems to be over; the pages within like fallen leaves to be swept into heaps. Cut-out leaves cascading into a heap from open book. As someone who has always had great love and value for books, I am continually saddened by their marginalisation. Books that were once valued are so often forgotten and left to gather dust.

100 x 150 x 220mm

Clay/paper rats nesting inside a found book

Decay of books and knowledge through idleness, technology and other influences

Exhibition notes:
;‘Booknesses: Contemporary South African Artist's Books’.

FADA Gallery, University of Johannesburg.

Curated by David Paton and Eugene Hon.

24 March - 5 May 2017

Ref: DP/17071