I am somewhat afraid of the water

I am somewhat afraid of the water is a hand-bound publication that explores how the sea feels emotionally. It utilizes system making and scientific aesthetics to describe what cannot be put into words. By borrowing from this known aesthetic, it makes the individual experience more approachable to the reader and treats it as something universal.

What started out as an exploration of a specific Island in the Oslo fjord became more than just that. It is yet another step into developing a visual language to gather up the abstract and make it understandable and emotionally experienceable.

The project was illustrated using monotype, a technique in which the illustration is accomplished by placing a sheet of paper on an inked up glass plate and drawing on the backside. Each point of contact of the paper with the inked plate cleaves its marks, thus creating a textured look next to the imprinted lines. This techniques allows for experimentation and chance, whilst accentuating the haptics of the paper and thus creating a more gestural result than a simple line drawing would.

So how does one go about systematising the emotional?

Once again this project was born out of the process. I started out trying to describe one specific Island in the Oslo fjord. I tried to understand how the current moved around this immovable object, how the wind would affect the ripples on the water’s surface and how being on the lee side would affect all of these factors. Having been interested in the illustration of movement and forces pushing against each other in previous projects, I easily fell into the habit of using the symbols and markers which I had developed before.

Turn-around of the finished publication. Hand-bound. 2024.