The House is in the Book: Collaboration in Isolation.

Land Marks Press,, 2021.. Edition. 14 folios, each 8.5 inches high x 22 inches wide. 12 folios archival pigment printed on archival rag paper. 2 folios letterpress printed from photopolymer plates on BFK Rives. Housed in custom portfolio box. Numbered. Signed by the artists. This is a limited edition of 15 copies, signed by the artists. Prospectus: "This new limited edition artist's book addresses collective experiences of loss and isolation, and explores notions of private, civic, and global space, refracted through the medium of books, and inspired by 'four cubits,' the Jewish concept of personal space. Employing a shared repertoire of images developed through virtual communication, each artist worked alone in her studio - Andi Arnovitz in Jerusalem, Lynne Avadenka in Detroit and Mirta Kupferminc in Buenos Aires - to create their individual book pages." Artist information included in prospectus. Lynne Avadenka, project: "'The House Is in the Book: Collaboration in Isolation' is defined by the Number Four: four participants-three artists and a curator; four cubits - the Jewish concept of personal space, and four folios from each artist. At the height of the COVID pandemic, the book's creation spanned four continents, as we collaborated online, delineating the parameters of the book. We three artists created a virtual visual archive from which we selected elements to include. Communal space, global space and celestial space were also concepts explored in this limited edition. The unbound folios can be exhibited on the wall as a singular work to make clear thematic, visual and chromatic connections." Andi Arnovitz (Jerusalem): "My pages physically break the boundary of the book form. There are literally books inside of books, and buildable spaces that pop up three-dimensionally out of the two-dimensional format. Using the Jewish Talmudic concept of the 'eruv' a deliberate and measurable boundary in actual physical space I juxtapose Covid related social distancing practices as well as human states of isolation. There are worlds floating inside other worlds, microscopic germs spreading and illusions to boundaries being dissolved." Lynne Avadenka (United States): "My four folios included visual multiples of the number four: four directions; four phases of the moon; four matriarchs (in Hebrew - Sarah, Rahel, Leah, Rivka); in a four-sided cube the first word, in Latin and English, of the phrase 'Books Have Their Fates', four-sided shapes suggesting freedom within structure. Along the bottom runs a number line totaling 40, referring to the days first thought to be necessary to quell a pandemic. Above the number line: the first word for quarantine, al arabainiya (forty days, in Arabic), then quarantena (in Italian) and then forty days of solitude (in English)." Mirta Kupferminc (Argentina): "Folio 1 'Intimate Space', speaks about our personal space which was felt either compressed or expanded. Folio 2 'Distant Small World' recalls the feeling that the world suddenly turned to be small. Folio 3 'Neighborhood', represents the desolate landscape of closed doors and windows, when our neighbor suddenly became a threat. Folio 4 'Cosmic Disorder', tells us about a cosmic chaos. All together work as a zoom, which goes from the most intimate space to the global, and vice versa. They all relate to each other and like the 'butterfly effect,' we have never before experienced so clearly that what happens at a distant point on the planet will affect us late or early as well."