Die Ermittlung

[VERSIONE ITALIANA QUI]

From Wikipedia:

The Investigation is a play by Peter Weiss written in 1965 which depicts the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963-1965. It premiered on October 19, 1965 on stages in fourteen West and East German cities and at the Royal Shakespeare Company in London. It carries the subtitle "Oratorio in 11 Cantos". Weiss was an observer at the trials and developed the play partially from the reports of Bernd Naumann. The Investigation is divided into eleven "cantos". These are arranged by theme and depict the path of the victims from the ramp upon arrival at Auschwitz all the way to the furnaces, so that ever more gruesome aspects of the anonymous genocide are described. Weiss deliberately avoided embellishing elements. The stage is supposed to depict only a bald courtroom and every distraction from the witness reports are to be avoided. 

This play was like a fist on the stomach when I first read it, I couldn't eat or talk for a whole day. And even though it has been years since that reading, when they asked me to work on a book that inspired me images or feelings The investigation  was my first thought. The book is bare, stark, raw. And the content, in that bare shape, weighs like heavy stones.
That's the image that I tried to create making this binding: my assignment during the class was to think about a 3D construction that could wrap up the book. So I end up with this monolyte, painted with graphite. A metallic, shiny monolyte, with a diagonal cut to wedge the book. A very simple cover, mucked up and "ruined" by scrubbing violently the paper against the wall.

[Work assignment done during Pamela Moore class about book arts. Thank you so much for everything you taught and for giving me the opportunity to realize this book]