AlieNation/SepaRation
By: produced by Maureen Cummins
Contributors: Hersey, Lisa, binder; Swarthmore College. Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary; Women's Studio Workshop; Penland School of Crafts
Publisher: [Maureen Cummins]
Published: 2019
Place of publication: [Bearsville, N.Y.]
Language: eng
Subjects: Artists' books; Refugees; Interviews; Assimilation (Sociology); American Serigraphy; Specimens; American Collage
Other titles: Alienation; Separation; Nation; Ration
Description: "Funded by the Pew Foundation for Arts and Heritage, Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary brought five artists into conversation with Syrian and Iraqi individuals resettled in Philadelphia. Driven by questions about displacement and refuge, history and experience, the project explores art's capacity to build empathy and create a deeper sense of belonging. Cummins began the task of creating an artist's book for Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary by interviewing four participating families. ... Out of over one hundred transcribed pages, Cummins selected forty-eight excerpts, which she then pieced together to create a narrative arc. ... Text blocks are severed, then reprinted as quarto-sections on corresponding pages of four separate books. As in the case of the resettlers themselves, these stories must be reunited in order to be read, understood, and made whole again. Since the structure is also two-sided, with half the pages printed upside down, the reader is forced to puzzle out where and how to begin, and what order in which to read the pages"--Prospectus
Notes: Title from colophon.

"AlieNation/SepaRation was produced by Maureen Cummins in the spring of 2019 as part of Swarthmore College's Friends, Peace, and Sanctuary project. ... The book was bound in the coptic style by Lisa Hersey and printed by the artist on site at Women's Studio Workshop and Penland School of Arts. All text and color fields were silkscreen printed onto sheets of Arches Cover ..."--Colophon

Limited edition of 50 copies, numbered and signed by the artist.

Colophon text interspersed throughout the 4 volumes.

"During Phase One of the printing, deeply saturated flats of color were hand-squeegeed onto blank sheets of Arches Cover White. Blocks of text were then surprinted over these color fields."--Prospectus

Rare Book copy: No. 2