Bound

Bound is the work of Christopher Snook (poet), Henry Lachance (visual artist), Gregor Chiasson (visual artist), and Matthew Joel Vanderkwaak (book binder and composer). The exhibit invites visitors to witness a group of artists as they work collectively to produce a hexameral series of hand-bound books of illustrated poetry. At a circle of tables, the artists sit and perform their dedicated tasks: inscribing poems, illustrating pages, designing covers, and sewing them together. Imitating the motions of the natural world, materials are passed sunwise around the circle and come to rest on the last table where visitors are invited to handle, open, and read them for themselves. Bound seeks to challenge the prevailing myth that art is most authentic when it is a private act of genius that stands in opposition to the world. In Bound, the work of each artist is complete in itself, but then is drawn into an even greater perfection through its relationship to parts in a whole.