kakishibu, konnyaku, pencil on 11g mitsumata, 6.8mm stainless steel surgical curette, nori paste, 10.5 x 14.8cm (when closed), artist book, 40 pages, 2025
The book sits on a paper shelf made of eight sheets of lokta paper and thread, hardened over time, and coated with a few layers of kakishibu.
ill at ease, is a part-diary, part-workbook, that builds from an ongoing research on chronic illness from the lens of (mis)translation and poetry. It reinterprets the structure of pain management workbooks from the perspective of an ill translator, whose language and body are becoming foreign to herself. Pain is unstable and resists being reprocessed in clinical conditions. It trembles and migrates. A long-term pain can find temporary relief by producing a smaller pain elsewhere in the body.
The book is made with water, konjac, kakishibu, and heat on mitsumata. Each book page is modified with a repetitive use of kakishibu in a ‘wrong’ way, that disrupts its oxidation process and causes wounds to form on and within the surface. The pigment darkens with sunlight, being especially tender in its first six months, but when the it is mis-translated, the paper surface becomes more unpredictable. I used references from textile decay, manuscript conservation processes, and clinical documentation of skin diseases to modify the surface of mitsumata. Visitors are invited to write in the book with the curette, with their experiences of pain in words, scratches or something that is not language. The curette is used in surgery for removing abnormal bone growth and hard tissue. It can hold pain and responds to a body that is in perpetual pain. Over time, this book is written together with collective memories of pain.
Special thanks to Ana Deviċ and Christian Stegmann for the suggestions and conversations. Supported by WHW Akademija, 2025.