Aleksandra Mir Livres

This book provides a companion to Aleksandra Mir's latest body of workSpace Tapestry: Faraway Missions, exhibited at Tate Liverpool and Modern Art Oxford. Inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry and the anonymous artists who depicted Halley's Comet in 1066, the Space Tapestry is a large-scale, hand-drawn monochrome wall-hanging that forms an immersive environment. Much like a graphic novel, Space Tapestry tells an episodic visual story of space travel. Over the past three years, Mir has maintained dialogues with professionals in the space industry and academia who have informed and inspired her. The work draws on themes relating to current debates, recorded events, scientific discoveries, technological innovations and predictions of imagined futures that currently affect all our lives.

Drawing upon the classic notion that flowers are imbued with meanings and a specific set of semantics with idealistic and hopeful connotations, Sicily-based artist Aleksandra Mir has edited and revised the botanical code in a more socially relevant fashion. The Meaning of Flowers consists of a full color artist-designed book where each botanical print is graced by a caption suggesting new meanings: insecurity, doubt, fatigue, betrayal and reconciliation are some of the thoughts associated with the Poppies, Orchids and other Hybrid Tea Roses depicted - at the same time, they are symptoms and elements that comprise the majority of romantic relationships. Combining both "high" and "low" fine art techniques, that of the elegant letterpress that recall old world civility and the pressed fruit and vegetables harnessed from local markets and which harkens back to kindergarten art activities, a completely new and idiosyncratic type of botanical print is created. Rather than those traditional Victorian botanicals that passively grace the halls and sitting rooms of respectable homes, these naively colorful works carry sophisticated implications and complicated overtones