Hassan Sharif created his first ‘books’ while studying in London in the early 1980s. He was influenced by artist Kenneth Martin’s notion of ‘chance and order’, the idea of producing drawings and paintings by randomly selecting numbers that corresponded to the edges of a squared grid. Sharif’s ‘books’ were also a form of retaliation against the admonition that he would not progress conceptually if he did not learn English. His ‘book’ sculptures include Book of Numbers (1982/2006), a stack of paper in a rough cardboard file, the top page of which features a column of typed numbers, and Book of Different Pens (1983), a red ring binder open to a page where writing announces the Berol Magnum marker that was used in the project. Sewing Notebook No. 1 and Sewing Notebook No. 2, both from 1983 and reconstituted in 2006 and 2007, respectively, presentnotebooks sewn shut with jute rope, their pages folded to create a flowering volume within, while Colourful File No. 2 (2006) consists of pieces of paper and cloth that seep out from a plastic file’s sewn edges.