To start my experimentation I turned to my mind map for a point of interest, settling on the hidden potential of books.
We all have books lying around, stacked up on our bedside table, yet most of us have not explored these book. We accept them at face value.
With this thought in mind, I decided create a surprise within a book. With only the people who open the book being able to figure out its secret.
I started by carving out a space in the book, as I pulled out each page I was intrigued by the texture of the paper, the thickness, and the lack of meaning the words seemed to have once I had pulled them out of their context.
This gave me an idea, what if I juxtaposed the idea of reading a book with an activity such as watching Netflix. I tried this and as I photographed the book, I realised that I had a stack of loose pages left over. Most had ragged edges, were misshaped and covered in words. What could I do with these?
Keeping with the thought of tsundoku, I decided to shred some of the paper and create a nest of words. This honed back to the idea of how we fill our homes with books, creating a ‘nest’ for ourselves that is filled with potential.
In keeping with this I explored the different uses of paper, what can be made – this led me to making a series of paper cranes.
Using a series of pages that I’d cut out, I noticed the story had little meaning to me now. I decided to mind a message within the pages that made sense to me. In fining this message ‘Good books don’t give up all their secrets at once’ – Stephen King
By highlighting these words in hidden ink, another layer is added to the pages – this goes back to the initial concept of hidden potential within books we collect but don’t read.
