Marian Macken Marian Macken i(10492719 works by)
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1 y separately published work icon Our Concealed Ballast Marian Macken , Newtown : Vagabond Press , 2023 26660637 2023 selected work prose 'Our Concealed Ballast weaves together reflections on motherhood, grief, attachment, and the moments that mark our movements through the world. It is a study of loss, its dimensions and atmosphere, and how these change over decades. A house on the river with a frangipani; an archive of drawings; a photograph taken by a father; a post office in West Harlem – the book pins together intimate moments and places which resonate to become a way of relating to the world. Renewing the memoir form within a spatial logic, passages communicating elusive ideas are precisely placed; these gather to deliver an emotionally taut reading across each spread of facing pages. Macken’s voice is direct and sparse, visceral and passionate, as she digs into the meaning and structure of the personal archive that we carry through life – the ballast of emotion and solace which keeps us steady.' (Publication summary)
1 Designing With/for/through the Existing : Artists’ Books and Documentations Marian Macken , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: JAB39 , no. 39 2016; (p. 13-17) 'The book form inherently has within it the notion of the archive. Books have the capacity to serve as records - "either reproducing a record of experience and information or serving as the document themselves." As Tim Guest suggested over thirty years ago in his introduction to Books by Artists, the documentary function is one of the main thematic elements of artists books. Books that document categorize larger elements to create order and meaning, The book, therefore, is a natural vehicle for the documentation of architecture and, more broadly, spatial practice.' (Introduction, 13)
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