For my selfie book I wanted to make something that represented exactly who I am.
I have always firmly believed in the phrase “want not, waste not” and so I have never liked throwing out paper, cardboard etc. because I feel like I can always make some art out of it so when I bought my Blick Kit, I saved all the boxes and packing paper that came with it. For this book I used that brown packing paper as the base, which I ironed to smooth out the wrinkles. I decided not to change the colour of the paper as I, myself, am brown.
The following are some of the prototypes that I came up with.
As I am a very short person, that has been the centre for a lot of jokes made about me throughout my life. I focused my entire project on this aspect of myself. I wanted to make sure that my book, like me, was a big surprise in a small package, hence when it is folded, the book looks small but when it is open it is quite large. When I was a child, I loved doing origami, so the folds of one of the books are an origami version of the regular accordion fold.
When the book is closed, it looks very small but once it’s open, it is very big and has a lot of layers/steps. These steps relate to how close I am to someone else. The closer I am to someone, the more steps they have climbed. I also tend to overthink a lot and the folds of the paper represent that.
The design on the back is one I doodle most often. The mandalas I draw are different each time I make a new one hence each one is unique to the situation I drew it in. Whenever I start to feel overwhelmed, anxious, stressed or even happy, I start to draw these leaves as it calms me down and helps me process my thoughts.
I have also added clippings of a Hindi and Arabic newspaper to represent my culture and where I’m from.
I have added multiple pictures of my eyes, nose, hands and feet as these are parts of my body that I have had problems with and feel insecure about and hence I have always been more aware about these parts of myself as compared to the others.
