ABOUT THE GARDEN OF FORKING PATHS:
This hybridized bookform began as an critical reading exercise—resulting in the physical creation of historical artifacts which are referenced in the story—and culminated in a collage-infused book of Argentine writer and poet Jorge Borges’ 1941 text, The Garden of Forking Paths. The story is set on the eve of the Battle of the Somme when an agent of the German empire assassinates a famous Sinologist to convey the name of a city to be attacked. A visual and typographic breakdown of the story resulted in the recreation of tangible hand-rendered pieces of “evidence,” including aged photographs, passports, stamps, telephone book covers, teaching certificates, train schedules, and newspapers from the early 1900s, which would become visual examples to accompany the final book text.
8.25 x 5.25 x .5 inches. Hardback with cloth cover, perfect bound, 30 pages, each incorporating hand-generated World War I artifacts to retell Jorge Borges’ The Garden of Forking Paths (1941). Signed edition of one, with accompanying, hand-made artifacts.
Images of this work were published in Steven Heller’s Design School Confidential, Rockport Publishing, 2009.