Emma Willemse

Cape Town

101 WAYS TO LONG FOR A HOME (2014)

Type of book work: Installation and performative intervention
Dimensions: variable, according to the space of table
Media: Discarded parquet floor blocks, paper, bookbinding fabric, digital prints, linocut, etching, inks, charcoal, pen, performative intervention

Artist's / designer's statements

21 handmade sculptural bookworks on a trestle table. Using a sand-timer as cue, artist re-curates the space on an hourly basis, re-enacting an attempted resettlement.

101 Ways to Long for a Home is part of a long-term project, conceived as an imaginary manual and archival tool to record and re-imagine ways to process the loss of a home through technically varied books, all between covers constructed from inverted discarded parquet floor blocks.

The ironic title alludes to the quick-fix solutions of self-help books. Instead, the expressly stated quantity of books to be constructed in this project, 101, reference infinity and complexity; challenging and subverting notions that trauma due to displacement can be theorized in traditional ways.