Grants and residencies

Research and art

Pas de deux – Nabokov’s blues and Dis Manibus – carved in stone research and artists’ book projects

Application summary

In collaboration with researchers in the USA and Finland in the fields of history, literature and entomology I will create complex multidisciplinary artists’ book projects. Collaborators are Tampere university, Finland, Harvard University’s Entomology Department, Wellesley college, special collections in MA., USA and the Berg collection of the New York Public Library. Firstly, I am interested in the movements of the writer Vladimir Nabokov as an emigrant in relation to his studies of butterfly taxonomy and their evolutionary migration, proven by geneticists in 2011, as a symbol of transformation and fragility. Secondly, based on existing stone inscriptions found in Rome, 200 BCE–200 CE, I am re-creating the life and paths of an existed family in a book form. Acknowledging their servants (slaves) mentioned, freed and buried, Rome, with it's streets and etymological street name explanations, still existing visible remains of rooms and walls of that time. The outcome will be showcased in a traveling exhibition from Stanford university via Boston atheneum to Klingspor museum in Frankfurt, artbook Berlin, Germany and Helsinki. Several other artists' books are in preparation. A comprehensive documentation shall be presented in a catalogue.

The projects Dis Manibus and Pas de Deux (and other artists' books) resulting in several limited artists' book editions and various exhibition, symposium and conference participations have come to an end. The last year was marked by the appearance of the artists' book Pas de Deux, which was the more elaborate and multidisciplinary project of all. It demanded research trips to the US., Switzerland and it resulted in a multitude of collaborations between linguists, biologists, lepidopterists and photographers. I am still working on the comprehensive documentation in form of a catalogue and a short video.