THIS MORTAL COIL  Philip Zimmermann (2004)

This book was created during my sabbatical year 2003-2004 when I was at the Border Art Residency in La Union, New Mexico. It is a 'flexi' book, a paper form that is a mathematical curiosity. The book appears flat with only a front and back but by turning the book inside out it reveals two more hidden surfaces –allowing there to be four sides. This book uses the four sides as a way to display the four elements: water, fire, earth, and wind. the text forms different small poetic allisions depending on the fold. The text and images relate to the content of the book which was meant to be a memoriam to my parents who had recently died within a year and a half of each other. The title refers to the famous Shakespeare line from Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' speech, "What dreames may come, When we have shufflel'd off this mortal coil..."

All photographic images are from my year there in the southwest. The water tank on the inside of the folding case was taken in the Donald Judd "Block", which was his home in Marfa, Texas. There are also photographs of migrating red-winged blackbirds, the water in the Sea of Cortez and a Mexican-American graveyard in La Mesilla, New Mexico.

The book was printed by pigmented inkjet. The dimensions of the book are 12.5" x 6.5" x .25" (31.7cm x 16.5cm x .6cm). 

PRINTED IN A VERY LIMITED RUN | THIS BOOK IS OUT OF PRINT