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Open
,
First
Edition
Edition
750
2022
Softcover
Saddle-stitch
binding
34
Pages
8
"
x
9.5
"
$ 55
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Good: Describes a book with average wear while maintaining complete text pages. The book is intact and readable, but shows signs of use. Any defects must be noted by the seller.
Fair: A worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc. (which must be noted).The binding and jacket (if any) may show significant wear. All defects should be noted.
New: New directly from publisher or artist.
As New: The book is in pristine, original condition as when published. This grade may apply to older books that have been carefully stored, never shelved, thumbed, or opened.
Fine: A Fine book is nearly As New in condition but without being crisp. The book may have been opened and read, but shows no defects to the book, jacket, or pages.
Near Fine: A book approaching Fine (or As New) but with a couple of very minor defects or faults, which must be noted by the seller
Very Good: A book showing small signs of wear but no tears on either binding or paper. The book maintains its structural integrity, and any defects must be noted by the seller.
Good: Describes a book with average wear while maintaining complete text pages. The book is intact and readable, but shows signs of use. Any defects must be noted by the seller.
Fair: A worn book that has complete text pages (including those with maps or plates) but may lack endpapers, half-title, etc. (which must be noted).The binding and jacket (if any) may show significant wear. All defects should be noted.
A photobook exploring Palestinian apartheid through destroyed photographs and fragments of emails.
Morgan Ashcom began Open while making photographs of daily life in Occupied Palestine in 2009. As Ashcom departed Palestine for his home in the United States, Israeli security forces opened his box of unprocessed film, exposing the images he had made to light. Assuming they were ruined, Ashcom left the mostly unexamined film in his studio for over a decade. Meanwhile, the Israeli-imposed apartheid continued.
In 2021, Ashcom revisited the negatives and saw new potential in them: the film was not ruined; rather, the tenuously visible images referenced resiliency and vulnerability, censorship and subversion, erasure, and the possibility of its reversal.
Open is a unique object: a container referencing Ashcom’s film box in and of itself, suggesting a paradox: should you open the box, or are you forbidden from doing so? Inside rests a passport-like book containing 34 pictures. Translucent pages obscure the imagery with fragments of communications between Ashcom and the financial institutions which thwarted his efforts to raise money for a Palestinian children's charity.
While the text originated from this experience, it takes on new meaning as a form of concrete poetry. Through erasure and distortion of text and photographic information, Open offers the possibility to imagine alternatives to the histories and futures imposed by apartheid.
