The circular prose of my entry The Truth Remains is both a nod to the wraparound format
I chose, and the inherent difficulties of combating belief-driven censorship. Read one way,
the text stands as a defiant, hopeful message that censorship can be negated. Read
another way, the book announces in Orwellian double-speak: “The Truth Remains. Ignore
the Truth.”
My raw materials were linen, silk, cotton, wood, thread, glass, and the tattered book
covers for The Gay Academic and Making History. I digitized the covers then combined
slices of them with a maze background and alchemical woodcuts from the 16th century.
After shrinking the images, applying a fragmented commentary, and adding faded washes,
I printed the collages onto cotton cloth and sewed them into an origami-inspired bookform.
Beads and mirrors serve to visually lighten the soft palette, evoke ancient manuscripts and
ethnic textiles, and link the viewers ceremonially to the almost-hidden original text.