BIND: bear witness, by Elize de Beer

BIND is a programme of exhibitions of individual artist books as part of Cork Printmakers artist book library, activating the existing library and celebrating the new and innovative approaches to artists books as a both social and intimate durational art object. 

The second edition of BIND presents bear witness, a limited-edition artist book by Elize de Beer containing a series of photo etchings, writings and drawings, enclosed within a clamshell box.
The work is an initial response to a residency de Beer undertook on Svalbard in July 2026. The artist book examines the landscape, glaciers, oceans, fossils and plant life found on Svalbard. A landscape continuously existing in the push and pull of its paradoxes; it is both fragile and recalcitrant. What else are people to do, but bear witness to its extremes and nuances?
Alongside printmaking, books are a key element of de Beer's artistic practice, from transitional bookbinding, DIY zines and sculptural book forms. She explores the physical presence of books as an art object and how they act as sites of knowledge production, activated by "reading". Further challenging their form and function, using unconventional binding, pop-ups, and altered structures to subvert the expectation of how a standard book can be "read".