Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison ~Australia

Restoring Corridors
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2024. Edition of 4.

12 double-sided image panel artists’ book with 5 text pages, inkjet print on Canson Arches 88 310gsm. housed in a box with original watercolour cover (by Louise Jennison) on Saunders Waterford Aquarelle 300gsm white hot-press paper. Printed by Arten.

Gracia and Louise: "Restoring corridors is a multi-paneled, double-sided artists’ book that forms an interchangeable, reversible 100cm x 300cm slice of biodiversity in flux, when hung on the wall. Housed within an original hand-painted watercolour box, it can be viewed as individual, abstract leaves. Within the box, each 50cm X 50cm leaf features a rich, biodiverse habitat, on one side, and a fractured habitat, on the reverse side.

“We invite you, as the reader, to choose: do you actively participate and contribute to biodiversity restoration or allow for habitat to be isolated, further dissected by human pressures[i]. Because all things are connected, you can, piece by leaf, connect and strengthen green corridors to habitat, ensuring biodiversity can flourish. This act of regeneration can be read in multiple states of growing, as wild animals return and pollinators thrive. Depending upon where you begin, you can ‘read’ the landscape as a fractured one that you help restore, or as biodiverse landscape that is being made into smaller and smaller islands by human activity.”

“Restoring corridors” was launched at the tenth Melbourne Art Book Fair, NGV International (Thursday 23rd of May – Sunday 26th of May, 2024).

[i] “Different from habitat loss and habitat degradation, habitat fragmentation occurs when a species’ habitat gets broken into pieces that are no longer connected to each other. …Many common causes of habitat fragmentation are linked to human activity. Building roads, railways, pipelines, farms, housing, cities, and other infrastructure can divide wild areas into pieces. Not only do human settlements physically block animals from reaching parts of their habitat, but they also can use up resources, effectively decreasing the suitable habitat available to these animals. Other human activities that can fragment wildlife habitats include oil and gas exploration, commercial development, and diverting water through technology like dams. For example, freshwater fish face severe limitations when dams are built in rivers. They can completely block their migration routes and cut them off from areas where they once were plentiful.” ‘How Habitat Fragmentation Affects Animals’, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), 1st April, 2024, accessed 2nd April, 2024.

“Restoring corridors” features elements from several collections, the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), State Library of New South Wales, J P Getty Museum (Los Angeles, USA), and Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam, the Netherlands).

Instagram image of Wall display of “Restoring Corridors”
Marginalia Essay on Soft Release of “Restoring Corridors”
“A good soft release is a connected site”

$5,400 (AUD $8,000)

The Remaking of Things
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison.
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2023. Edition of 100 + 10 AP.

180mm x 222mm; 38 pages. Perfect bound. 336 Indigo Digital CMYK and black pages on 160gsm ecoStar + 100% Recycled Uncoated. Bound in Indigo Digital CMYK on 300gsm ecoStar + 100% Recycled Uncoated, with 185gsm Apmil Kraft end papers and belly band. Housed in a router-cut SwissQ inkjet CMYK on Silver Metalised Polyester 300gsm satin. Printed by Bambra. Numbered.

Gracia and Louise: "The remaking of things is a collage comprised from 100 individual pieces in the NGV collection, spanning painting and photography by way of ceramics and silverware, textiles and works on paper.

“We have created a pocket of restored eucalyptus forest habitat by the banks of the Birrarung for the Grey-headed flying fox (Pteropus poliocephalus), and all who fall beneath the care and knowledge of their wing, from the smallest Reed Warbler (c. 1804–1806) to the loftiest, gelatin silver Giant eucalyptus (1899), our human selves included. We have interlaced our roles as artists and wildlife carers for the Grey-headed flying fox to sow a message of hope, cultivated from Anne Paulson’s Sketches of Victorian bush flowers (c. 1861) and fit for a John Lewin’s Warty-face Honey-sucker (now known as a Regent honeyeater). We have placed our emphasis upon what we can grow, rather than upon what we have lost (habitat, biodiversity, stable climate). Through seed dispersal and pollinating plants, flying foxes are the reason we have trees, diversity. And it is because of this ‘no me, no tree’ that none of us can afford to lose this threatened species.

“We have printed scenes from the glass plate negatives of Caire’s Fairy scene at the Landslip, Blacks’ Spur (c. 1878) and Condon’s Gully, Healesville (c. 1903–1910) upon silver foil paper, which has then been cut into the shapes of paperweights, embellished emu eggs, and further Sowerby specimens ranging from, what we now refer to as, acacias to grevilleas. This sweep of additional reflective collage components is intended to serve as a mirror: what is my role in the forest? What am I doing for nature? A literal reflection to spark a question, dressed in the costume of a Horseshoe bat’s outstretched wing.”
$80

Because I Like You
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2016. Edition of 10.

9.5 x 8” loose leaves; 11 (1 title + 10). 10 individual woodblock engravings by Louise Jennison and 10 unique state collage with pencil and paint additions by Gracia Haby. On Fabriano Artistico 640gsm traditional white hot-press paper. Housed in a black linen Solander box with inlaid print and collage. Bound by Louise Jennison. Numbered.

Gracia & Louise: "’Because I Like You’ is based on the concept of a love letter to ten mammals. Each of the edition is housed in a black fabric Solander box with inlaid windows featuring one of the ten mammals enclosed. Each page has one mammal lemonwood block print portrait and one mirrored original collage of the portrayed mammal. The mammals featured range from a Greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis) to a Sea otter (Enhydra lutris) by way of a Royal antelope (Neotragus pygmaeus) and a gruff Polar bear (Ursus maritimus).

"This artists’ book has been over a year in the making, based on a back and forth notion we have been toying with more and more (a collage in response to a print this time). The printed portrait shows nature, as intended (close to), and the collage shows the animal in different (and often less than ideal) surrounds.

"It is also our first book to feature woodblock prints."

Animals featured, in order of appearance:
Greater bilby (Macrotis lagotis)
Black-and-gold howler monkey (Alouatta caraya)
Rufous mouse lemur (Microcebus rufus)
Polar bear (Ursus maritimus)
Royal antelope (Neotragus pygmaeus)
Californian sea lion (Zalophus californianus)
Snow leopard (Panthera uncia)
Greater stick-nest rat (Leporillus conditor)
Eurasian red squirrel (Sciurus vulgaris)
Sea otter (Enhydra lutris)

Sea Otter Letter: “The loose patch of skin under your forearms serves as a pocket for rocks and other tools and it is primarily why I like you. I could be talking about a Sea otter (Enhydra lutris); I could be talking about you.”
$725 (Last Copy)

“Looped” is a series of five independent yet related artists’ books. Each can be read as one but together they also weave a tale. Each book has a scene/a story printed on the exterior of the slipcase. The accordion book carries the imagery created for the written narrative.

1. I think all the world is falling
2. No longer six feet under
3. Disrupted and rumpled
4. Dim wood, spark bright
5. A warmed pebble in my hande.

Disrupted and rumpled
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2017.
Edition of 6 + 1 AP.

8 x 4.75"; 8 pages. Concertina structure. Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. Covers mounted on gold-trimmed board. Housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board. Covers and pages printed by Arten. Slipcase printed by Bambra Press. Bound by Louise Jennison. Numbered, dated, and initialed by artists. Fine .

This is the third in the Looped series of five books. Each book stands alone but together they weave a tale. Each book has a scene/a story printed on the exterior of the slipcase. The accordion book carries the imagery created for the written narrative.

As with the others in this series man’s role in the scheme of the universe, particularly on earth, is considered. As the moon rolls in front of the sun creating an eclipse the writer says that “nature feels unordered, unexpected, even animalistic.” Man is but “a tiny tiny speck.”

$ 600 AUD ($410 USD approx.) (Last Copy)

I think all the world is falling
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2017.
Edition of 6 + 1 AP.

8 x 4.75"; 8 pages. Concertina structure. Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. Covers mounted on gold-trimmed board. Housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board. Covers and pages printed by Arten. Slipcase printed by Bambra Press. Bound by Louise Jennison. Numbered, dated, and initialed by artists.

“I think all the world is falling” is the first in the Looped series. The overall theme of this series seems to be our relationship to our environment, to nature, to the world at large. This first book in the series begins with a quote from “Kylling Kluk” (1823) by J. Mathia Thiele which is also the title of this first book – “I think all the world is falling.” We imagine Chicken Little from this fairy tale running around thinking the sky is falling because a nut hit him on the head. That was long ago, perhaps now we are creating the ‘nuts’ that are falling all around.

There is a beautiful image of nature’s hands, or is it human hands. that comes together when the boards are placed side by side. The interior of the accordion shows a bird’s eye view of the world - but is it up or down?

Where there was water, there also was earth. And instead of the sound of birds calling, there was the white noise hum of standby power. It was familiar. Yet it was out of sorts. It was a left foot crammed into the right shoe.

$600 AUD ($410 USD approx.) (Last 2 copies)

No Longer Six Feet Under
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2017. Edition of 6 + 1 AP.

8 x 4.75"; 8 pages. Concertina structure. Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. Covers mounted on gold-trimmed board. Housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board. Covers and pages printed by Arten. Slipcase printed by Bambra Press. Bound by Louise Jennison. Numbered, dated, and initialed by artists.

This is the second in the Looped series of five books. Each book stands alone but together they weave a tale. Each book has a scene/a story printed on the exterior of the slipcase. The accordion book carries the imagery created for the written narrative.

The effect that man has had on the environment is a continuing theme in this series of books. The narrative speaks of the ebb and flow of the sea, washing away and then leaving behind. Walking through the debris the writer says “As I had slept, Atlantis rose, or so it seemed. Bringing with it a band of subterranean garden-hose sea snakes and rusted shopping trolley chariots. Ring pulls, wrapper, waster, and gelato spoons too.”

About their work the artists have said – “The words of Gogol whisper in the ear, ‘the longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes.’ And so, we leave our scenes open-ended, inviting you to ponder and perhaps find that things are not always as they first appear.”

The books in this series are meant to be read again and again, to be viewed again and again. For with each reading a new question or view comes to mind.

Haby & Jennison: “Our only chance of a healthy, safe, joyous, and sustainable future is to return to being reciprocal with nature so nature can continue to look after us.”
$600 AUD ($410 USD approx.) (Last 2 copies)

A Warmed Pebble in My Hand
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2017.
Edition of 6 + 1 AP.

8 x 4.75"; 8 pages. Concertina structure. Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. Covers mounted on gold-trimmed board. Housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board. Covers and pages printed by Arten. Slipcase printed by Bambra Press. Bound by Louise Jennison. Numbered, dated, and initialed by artists.

"A Warmed pebble in My Hand" is book 5 in a series of five artists' books from 2017 by Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison. Each in the series are eight page concertinas in an edition of 6. Each book stands alone but together they weave a tale.

Each book has a scene/a story printed on the exterior of the slipcase. The accordion book carries the imagery created for the written narrative.

The text hints at intimacy and wilderness. The accordion then extends to bring us to statuary and stone. What world is this?

The reader is given the opportunity to weave their own tale while given a text and visual base. Gracia and Louise have said " For us, the animal is there to question our very behaviour, those moral principles one governs the self by, and to explore our relationship with the natural world."

It looks as though the series especially this last book continues to place us in that position of looking at the natural and the artificial. But then you should draw your own conclusions and stories – as the artists wish you to.
$600 AUD ($410 USD approx.) (Last Copy)

Dim wood, spark bright
By Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
[North Vitzroy, Victoria, Australia]: Gracia and Louise, 2017.
Edition of 6 + 1 AP.

8 x 4.75"; 8 pages. Concertina structure. Inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag 308gsm. Covers mounted on gold-trimmed board. Housed in a printed slipcase on 225gsm Buffalo board. Covers and pages printed by Arten. Slipcase printed by Bambra Press. Bound by Louise Jennison. Numbered, dated, and initialed by artists.

"Dim wood, spark bright" is book 4 in a series of five artists' books from 2017 by Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison. Each in the series are eight page concertinas in an edition of 6. Each book stands alone but together they weave a tale.

Each book has a scene/a story printed on the exterior of the slipcase. The accordion book carries the imagery created for the written narrative.

In the tale of "Dim wood, spark bright" there is the description of being in a caged– darkness, exploration of surroundings ending with a splinter under the skin, realization of being confined. Heart beating loudly. Glowing eyes in the darkness. "I never heard them coming until it was too late."

When the reader pulls out the accordion to view the images it may come as no surprise to see a wild cat lounging around. But the vignette and the images do ask you to form a narrative of your own making and ponder how did we get here?
(SOLD/Out of Print)