Before My Memory Goes
by Marian Bantjes
This piece is made of a modular lettering pattern that can be broken down or built up to form letterforms. The statement is one close to me because my memory is already going, like my mother’s did before me. Memory appears to have a complete state out of which portions appear and disappear, much like these letterforms do out of the pattern. Clarity is variable. Everything seems to be always shifting.
Marian Bantjes lives and works from an island off the West coast of Canada, near Vancouver. She has been variously described as a typographer, designer, artist, and writer. An extensive monograph of her work, Pretty Pictures‚ was published by Thames & Hudson in the fall of 2013. Her 2010 book‚ I Wonder, was published by Thames & Hudson, 2010. It, along with several other pieces or her work, is included in the permanent collection of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum (Smithsonian) in New York. She has lectured on her work at conferences and events worldwide since 2006. In 2010 she spoke at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. In 2008, she was accepted as a member of the international design organization, Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), and in 2010 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Emily Carr University in Vancouver, Canada. www.bantjes.com.
INCONGRUOUS, a residency for brazen experimentation in design practices at New York City's Museum of Arts and Design
Originally appeared in the online supplement to the Beyond Category issue 43.2-44.1