The Concertina

And So I Watch You From Afar, Aindreas Scholz.
Seven-metre concertina made in collaboration with Mazzotti Books.

Recently, a surprising number of people have been asking me to make concertinas.

Different people. Different projects. No connection between them.

And I’ve started wondering why.

Is it simply becoming more visible? Or is there something about the structure itself that people are responding to now?

A concertina is a strange kind of book.

Closed, it can sit in your hands.

Open it, and it can take over a table. Keep going and, sometimes, an entire room.

It can be experienced one panel at a time, like a conventional book. But unfold it completely and suddenly everything exists at once.

Sequence becomes image. Book becomes object.

It doesn’t really ask you to choose between reading something and looking at it. Between holding it and displaying it. Between experiencing the parts and seeing the whole.

I’ve made concertinas that extend for metres, and yet return to the size of a book.

Maybe that’s part of the attraction.

Then again, suddenly everyone seems to want one.

Why the concertina? Why now?