HOW WILL THEY KNOW THERE’S NO-ONE LEFT
A telescopic view
Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison
How will they know there’s no-one left
2025
Peepshow artists’ book comprised of seven inkjet prints and five internal sections on Canson Arches 88 310gsm, with concertina wings in Hereford Book & Printmaking 140gsm, capable of expanding to 50cm (when open), with a single view hole to cover, with collapsable curtain opening
Housed in a two-toned paper sleeve, with cutout and adhered paper elements, on Fabriano Tiziano 160gsm (Blue Night) and Stonehenge Cotton Rag 245gsm (Black)
Printed by Arten
Bound by Louise Jennison, with hand-cut elements
Edition of 10
From a nightmare, sprung, quite literally, the impetus behind our first peepshow artists’ book, How will they know there’s no-one left.
An empty forest, in which no wildlife roamed, rootled nor had inhabited nor pollinated for a long while, was masked by AI simulations of wildlife inhabitants. Chipping away at the edges, replacing the missing with projection, for how long this had been so? What lay beneath the mirage was a landscape devoid of rich, biodiverse life, and this gave root to the abandoned stage which reveals itself to the reader upon peeping through the central hole. As the red curtain falls, it dawns, the stage is empty, the set abandoned.
The full moon, at journey’s end, now crescent, yet still no rustle of wildlife, furred, scaled, or otherwise. How will we, any of us, know what we have lost, when entire ecosystems crumble?
How will they know there’s no-one left was launched from our stall at the eleventh Melbourne Art Book Fair, NGV International (Friday 16th of May – Sunday 18th of May, 2025).
Editions of How will they know there’s no-one left have been acquired by Deakin University, State Library Victoria, and the Research Library and Archive of the Art Gallery of NSW.
