The Chinese Whisper Books
2020-21, embroidery and ink on handmade paper, 6 handbound books
Every day, we consume hundreds of images thanks to the availability of the internet. Images are obtained, transformed, distorted and appropriated before being shared, redistributed and disseminated by digital technology. The result being the proliferation of unfaithful reproductions which become so familiar to us that they begin to compromise our understanding of the long forgotten original. Over-saturated by imagery, we allow the imagery itself to eclipse and replace the real. Reality is mediated by images.
This series of handmade books demonstrates how a single image becomes increasingly deformed as it deviates further and further from the original. Each day presents a new page with a new drawing – a copy of the previous drawing. Chinese whispers, as it were, but with drawings. With each iteration, the image alters marginally, perhaps undetected at the time however it results in the final image being unrecognisable from the first.
Molly Pemberton 