Documenting Life Stories through Artist Books

I was there (vol. I and II) is a set of two limited-edition artist books that portrays and tells the life stories of Kevin and Esta, two unrelated older individuals who live close to my home. I was there translates my conversations with them into a material form through an unconventional combination of text, image, the blank space of the page, and the book structure itself. The tasks involved in the production of the artist books expanded to include photography, audio and video recordings, transcription, designing, printing and publishing. Accompanying the artworks, this exegesis reflects a critical exploration of issues surrounding the notions of language, storytelling, portraiture and representation, and unpacks ideas that concern and respond to a wider ongoing conversation found in the literature. In particular, the research responds to and draws upon Mexican artist Ulises Carrión‘s definition of the artist book; Italian microhistorian Carlo Ginzburg‘s theory of signs; American literature professor Walter Ong‘s ideas on the impact of the invention of writing; and the work of German philosopher Benjamin Walter and French literary theorist Roland Barthes. Within this framework, the research outcome demonstrates an original way of communicating life stories and proposes the artist book as an alternative space for documentary work.