GILL, SIMRYN
Pearls is a full colour photographic record of Simryn Gills ongoing bead-making project which she began in 1999. The book brings together over sixty sets of beads, each hand-rolled from torn pages of books given to the artist by friends and acquaintances. The compelling beauty of Pearls wrestles with the disturbing reality that each set of beads exists at the expense of a books destruction. The transformation of books into beads ponders what is gained and what is lost when objects or bodies of knowledge are traded, exchanged and circulated. Gill gifts each set of beads back to the person who gave her the book, completing, in her words, a transaction that lies at the heart of the Pearls project.