When stories unfold...
Illustrating the untranslatable
Foldable books - books without binding - are beautiful in their simplicity, and exciting in their ability to unfold a story, both literally and figuratively. Unlike traditional, bound books which divide the story into pages, foldable books let you stretch the canvas (and the storyline), or segment it abruptly and creatively.
Six years ago I attended a short online class on creating illustrated foldable books by a musician and illustrator Roger Ycaza, where I created my first full illustrated picture book. I have not looked back since - accordion and other foldable books are one of my favourite formats, and I create them regularly. It is not that I have not seen foldable books before - I have held them, loved them, read them, gifted them, admired them. It is not that I have never thought about the interplay of form and content. But there was something uniquely inspiring in Roger’s class, maybe because his inspiration was music, and the task was to start with a song as a “trigger”. The relationship between music and inspiration definitely hit the right spot. The task of illustrating the feeling of the song rather than the story tickled my creative imagination.
I picked up the song called “Far Away” by a queer/lesbian icon , Svetlana Surganova. It resonated with me on many levels- all of which untranslatable, all too difficult or impossible to explain to people outside of my generation, language, migration history or queer experience. Which was the majority of people around me. I remember being completely immersed in this feeling of the untranslatable when working on this book.
I ended up deviating from the assigned medium - acrylic - because it was not working, and cut some papers (again). The paper theatre took charge (again). It was definitely the wrong medium - glued-on paper collage doesn’t work well with folding/unfolding. I had very basic tools. I was experimenting and improvising. And so, it turned out to be the right medium after all, becuase it has set me on a journey I did not even know I needed.
Many of the images have since travelled into my other projects. The book itself was gifted to a dear friend. I have since mastered many illustration media, analogue and digital. And I hope to remake thisbook in another medium one day: maybe ink. Maybe acrylics. Something that would not get damaged as the pages fold.
I’ve been unfolding untranslatable stories since.