Vanishing | asako iwama

text and photograph for CRYPTICCRYSTALCLOUD 3
an artist book by DOCKX & MAST, with contributions by: Els De bruyn, Sarah De Wilde, Jean-Baptiste Decavèle, Nico Dockx, Yona Friedmann, Joseph Grigely, Egon Hanfstingl, Claudine Hellweg, Asako Iwama, Geert Lernout, Sarat Maharaj, Jan Mast, Molly Nesbit, Johan Pas, Jörn Schafaff, Rirkrit Tiravanija
2013

vanishing
mementos
collective knowledge
displaced
emancipated
library

we had no contact since 2000
i don’t remember how he looked or talked

and the day i traveled to the north october 2011
to see the house of my grandparents which my father inherited
i knew had been washed away by the Tsunami

i heard from my sister my father’s half of the library had been moved to that house 2 years ago

within an unknowable timescale
books were gathered by my father
about groundlessness and migration which he worked
through his own interest which is related very much to where he came from
books were the most important things for him since he bought the first one
he collected all the books and always wrote the date and time
and where he bought them, as well as his name
this was his ritual

there were thousand of books which were written by others

attachment by my father to them
completely drowned in sea water
washed by waves
sunk into saltwater
starting to mold and falling apart

resonance between water and material
the creation of unreadable books
the figurative become non-figurative
dissolution of function

without being seen
this archive will remain in the space only where roof protects from rain

encounter of sea water and books
enigma of coincidence