Reliquiae

By Julie Garcia, Jihae Kwon, Jaime Shafer, Na'ama Zussman
Washington DC: Marginalia Press, 2013. Edition of 30.

7.5 x 10"; 40 pages, 4 half leaves, 8 endpage leaves. Screenprint and letterpress printing with polymer plates and linoleum blocks. Adelle, Arita, and Verlag typefaces. Text printed on Somerset heavy text and Japanese Mulberry paper. Endpapers blind embossed Hahnemuhle Bugra. Bound in covers of sheets of handmade paper of cotton, flax, and abaca. Hand-bound in a long-stitch style with a wrap-around cover and a dyed leather spine.

This is the fourth annual collaborative artists' book created by graduate students in the Corcoran College of Art & Design. Reliquiae was created in the Fall of 2013 by Studio II Master's Degree candidates in the Art & the Book program under the guidance of Sarah McDermott.

Marginalia Press: "Reliquiae explores the phenomenon of the long-term preservation of the human body , and what these practices symbolize, express, and reveal about the societies in which they occur. Beginning with the idea of the body as a relic, the book then details modern embalming practices and examines seven extreme cases of preservation. Combining intriguing detail about the venerated body with imagery of the deceased, the book encourages the viewer to continue the discovery process."
$325