Certain Fragments

2021-2022

In 2003, the Antwerp Diamond Centre was robbed of $100million of diamonds; to this day there is no definitive account of what happened. The heist and (still unrecovered) loot exist in limbo, kept alive by continually reworking the tale. Considered alongside one such retelling from the ‘Heist’ podcast, this work forms a visual accompaniment to the oral account. A hybrid of words, images and exclamations, the illustrations explore how stories relate to the audience, and what makes us trust. I have been working between charcoal and screenprinting, exploring how the two media can interact. This is a tangible spoken word.

Printmaking processes allow for easy reproduction and dissemination of one thing. While this repetition shares much with the development of trust habits, it misses some of the vitality of oral storytelling and the margin for difference that is inherent in this narrative sharing. This project is an exploration of how screenprinting can open itself up to alterations between each print. From person to person, the book will change. Pearlescent ink looks different at different angles and in different settings. Using charcoal as an alternative to traditional printing ink allows the images to differ from book to book as the powder swirls then settles in different ways through the screen. This is a book; this is a podcast; this is marker of what happened, and what probably didn’t happen.

Photos by chema rodríguez alcántara. Art direction by Olivia Juett.

Podcast Source: Heist Podcast Episode 6 Remastered - ‘Never Trust a Guy Named Speedy’