The Telephone Books (or the Recipe Books) fig. 1-8

Artist Statement

These are the notebooks of Z.A.B. She was my grandmother and was illiterate. She gave birth to twelve children, of whom ten lived. To keep in touch with them all she made herself a telephone directory from an old recipe notebook. To identify each family member, she made a coded drawing: the one with spectacles, the one with four sons. The corresponding telephone numbers were recorded as a series of little lines, which today recalls the ones and zeroes of binary computer language. She had someone else write the name as well.


April 2011

This project was part of Sharjah Biennial 10

Courtesy of the Artist, Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Beirut/Hamburg, and Polaris, Paris.
Produced by Sharjah Art Foundation