Until the Book Faints

This project documents the immersion and decay of a book held underwater for 3.5 years and counting. Primarily photo-based, it also comprises a lyric essay investigating slow change, slow time, and collaborations with nature. How do I turn something that is not a clock into a clock?

So far the book refuses to relent. Though the ink becomes fainter, and the book changes shape…it reassembles. Cunning book! When, and if, the book is ever totally pulped into slurry, I will return the word-heavy water to the waterfall, if the waterfall is pleased to accept it. As with all the Love Letters to Nature, this practice is intuitive and spontaneous. My gratitude to CA Conrad for metaphysical and practical influence.

The tactic of deep attention to change speaks to confinement during the pandemic as well as living within the Anthropocene, specifically the ecological disasters of forest fires and the 2022 Pacific Northwest heat dome that killed 629 people and a billion ocean organisms in the space of two weeks.