Yan Wai Yin (Winnie), So Good, So Guam, Dotdotdot Studio, Hong Kong, China, 2019, ed. 50

This is just a totally cool accordion, and in the statement below Yin explains how the book came about.

So Good, So Guam is a very long sketch that condenses a 11-day family trip to Guam in 2018. My family went there for my elder brother's wedding ceremony. During the trip, I was constantly stuck in the backseat. I sketched continuously what I've seen and places we went, sometimes the repeated elements are edited out. Spaces and surroundings are also oft distorted or twisted in order to build up the continuity. I didn't draw anything during the ceremony though.

Yin's sparse and sophisticated drawing style, coupled with a sharp eye for detail, perfectly complements the unusual dimensions of this accordion and in the process she creates a wonderful panoramic drawing that stretches unbroken throughout the length of the accordion.  The small size, and the intimacy required when looking at it only enhances its charm.

42 pages single-sided, individual pages 2.25" (h) x 5" (w), when fully open 17ft 6". 

The book has a wraparound cover

The 'introduction' to the book

back page of the accordion

Gabrielė Gervickaitė, 03, NoRoutine Book, Riga, Latvia, 2018, ed. 99.

A rather curious accordion that includes the following statement about what this Lithuanian artist is exploring in this book:

03 is my creative reflection on the soviet time, when I was born and lived for a while. It is my intention to understand deeper which power systems are functioning now and how soviet imagery still influences the times of today. It is important to me which aesthetics and ethics were used while imaging the human body in medical books and tutorials. Comparing medical illustration that were used in the past and those that are used now, I see forms of medical control. I analyze which ethical events and forms of power exist — what the norms used to be and which created now.

Folded into the pages of this accordion are a number of color offset prints depicting bodies being acted upon by a number of different corrective medical devices, counterposed with older drawings of other assorted medical instruments. 

Knowing that a main area of concern in Gervickaitė's work revolves around exploring images of disability, informed by her own personal experiences and surgeries, I can't help but interpret this work within this very personal context. While the larger issues she seeks to address provide the broader context for for this book, it is the body and its encounter with the world of medicine that takes center stage for me. And, anyone who has had encounters of this sort will readily identify with these rather curious medical procedures being applied to these hapless 'victims'. Ultimately the contents of this book are rather unsettling, and reinforced by the uniquely constructed pages and attached inserts.

10 pages, double-sided, with inserts. Individual pages 6.25" (h) x 6.25" (w), and fully open 5ft 8.75".

back cover