Subtraction | christineoatman

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Subtraction

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subtraction

2009–16

The original Little Golden Book, My First Counting Book, has been reconstructed from a codex format to an accordion format. Each of the ten baby animals in the book has a lift-up flap that features a related endangered species with the number of creatures left remaining in the wild.

The altered book in this tableau :

My First Counting Book by Lilian Moore, Illustrated by Garth Williams, (1957)

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Continuing the theme of numbered balls on the book's cover and the girl's skirt, the "danger element" in this tableau is a ball that is falling off the pedestal and about to land on the Reading Girl's forehead.

Discreetly placed "adult" book, Imagining Extinction, addresses issues raised in the piece.

An unaltered copy of the original book is contained in a plexiglass box that resembles a coffin, thus accentuating the extinction theme. Grass grows from book face through the box's clear top.

While the inset windows 1-10 recall a traditional Advent calendar, the new information that is revealed when they are opened concerns species decline and death rather than birth.

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S12

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S14

S15

S16

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