obsolescence: encyclopaedia nicole dextras
weathering uselessness
books paper mulch
I am from Alexandria. No, no the ancient port of knowledge in Egypt but a small dull town near the St-Laurence River in Ontario. But nonetheless the namesake of my birthplace has forged strange neural pathways in my imagination to the fabled lost city of books, instilling a penchant for the tactile and ephemeral nature of ink and paper. As an artist I have created words in ice that melt and of grass that grows. I am fascinated by the morphing of language. Maybe it is because this town of my childhood lives on the border of Ontario and Quebec where the central thoroughfare is called Main street at one end and rue Principale at the other. To my juvenile ears both languages danced endlessly between division and alliance, while the transmutation of words themselves were an incessant sharpener of wit. Obsolescence is a series based on lost material technologies such as the typewriter, the darkroom enlarger and the encyclopædia, whose relevance has vanished in my lifetime. Installed outdoors, I documented their transformation over the course of four seasons. A full set of hard cover encyclopædias was once a proud affirmation of middle-class aspirations towards progress but now they are displayed as relics of a bygone age in upscale vintage stores. Today these photos of books portray the A to Z of knowledge as their appeal and importance diminishes through the ravages of time. Their pages turn as the leaves fall and the snow blankets. Their mutation is recorded as they are pierced with blooms, then frozen in ice, their pages glued together with mould, with words isolated and blurred, full of nostalgia and loss but also with an ever-hopeful eye for detail and life. c
© nicole dextras
Nicole Dextras graduated from Emily Carr College of Art in the interdisciplinary department in 1986. Her art practice is rooted in the environmental art movement with transformative installations and film that mark the nature of time. She has exhibited in Canada, the USA and Asia.
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on site review 40 : the architect’s library :: books, shelves, collections
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