Christine Oatman

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.

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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.

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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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