Onward

Collaborative Artists Book
The Rhinoceros Project
Anne Beck & Michelle Wilson
2019

We made Onward in the interlude between Act 1 - The Rhinoceros & Act 2 - The Tenochtitlan Map. The book begins to explore the connections between these two historic images through mapping, botany, color, and historical narratives. 

The Rhinoceros Project is largely a search for renewed values systems based in belonging and interconnectedness - through craft, art & colonial histories, and socially engaged practice. Onward maps the trajectories of colonial characters integral to our research - Vasco da Gama, The 1515 Rhinoceros, Hernan Cortez, Junipero Serra - and visits with some of the plants who were instigators and witnesses to these travels.

Material Description:
Onward is comprised of two volumes. The first is pamphlet stitched with a fold-out interior spread, letterpress printed within a cover hand-painted with natural inks made from plants and one insect found along the colonialist routes that led to Durer’s original prints. The second is a turkish fold map array, digitally printed in color, within a woodblock printed cover that aludes to celestial navigation. The two are held within one hand-sewn and embroidered enclosure made of annato and indigo dyed fabric, found colonial-revival fabric, and naturally dyed thread. Cover paper is handmade abaca paper, interior papers Neenah Environment Almond. Type was set in Cochin and Charlemagne Std. Both volumes are 7 x 6” when closed.

Edition of 45. Signed & Numbered 

Current Price $400.

Collections:

University of Miami Special Collections
Yale University Special Collections

Exhibitions:

Finding Common Ground, Sowing the Seeds of Community & Collaboration, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA, 2021-22

Bound, the Art of the Book, ACCI Gallery, Berkeley CA, 2022 

How is your Rhinoceros Inspiring You? Mendocino Arts Center, Mendocino, CA, 2019