Art: The Holy Bible
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| Martina La Trobe-Bateman (British, 1976–), The New English Bible – Remnant Papers, 2025. Paper codex sculpture made in a cyclical process from The New English Bible (Oxford University Press, 1970) and rainwater, 6 × 9 × 10 in. |
Working with contemporary codices, in a continual cyclical process of pulping, making, re-pulping, and re-making, I make new paper (embodied texts) from distinct bibles and rainwater as a form of prayer. For each process cycle, spanning several weeks, a single bible is salvaged from unsold charity shop books destined for recycling. Holy Bible is part of a much larger ongoing body of ephemeral works, in which temporary sculptures emerge only to be returned to the process and rhythm of making.
In each sculptural iteration, the material text takes on a different form. Working with guests invited to the studio, gestures, stories, thoughts, and conversations, all become part of the transitional works. The repetitive movements of pulling paper and the constant sound of water in motion become an accompanying liturgy.
. . . You might find the work more revealing if you consider the processes through which the book has gone not as a ‘stripping of words’ but more as a transformation of form. In material terms, everything that the book is, is preserved. The pages, the ink, even parts of the binding are all still part of its physical presence. In fact, it is quite impossible (without industrial machinery) to pulp the pages to a degree that would mean an erasure of the letters. Letter fragments, entire letters, and word fragments are the most striking marks on the pages. I found that in itself quite revealing. So, in its most basic consideration, the sculpture is one of pure paratext. Here, only that which exceeds the text remains as immediately accessible. Its current form carries the meaning of ‘book’ or ‘manuscript’ or ‘text’, but it also carries with it the full memory of the forms it has taken in its journey and the people who have interacted with it.
It is fascinating to watch people interact with the work. Almost everyone looks for letters or word fragments and are as excited to find some as an archeologist might be to uncover a letter or word fragment from an ancient gospel codex on a frayed piece of parchment. In this day and age, it’s really exciting to watch unchurched, non-Christian gallery visitors squeal in delight over having recovered a Biblical word. It’s coming alive to them in completely new ways. And isn’t that really how the Word of God is – always new, spoken in a personal address in the eternal present? I agree with Martin Luther and Karl Barth here, in our preaching, in the sacraments, in the word of Scripture, it is always Christ who is speaking. The Word of God is the Word of the living God. This is where my PhD research sits.
I’m writing (and making through creative practice) a new systematic of Scripture, in which I describe it functioning as a place of encounter. A living text in and through which we encounter Christ and leave changed. Of course we need words. My work probes the space of the text and the seat of the text. And as an artwork in a gallery setting, I hope the work raises exactly these sorts of questions and becomes a place that welcomes the stranger. Christians coming to the work seem to need more explanation and reassurance to be able to engage with it in a way that makes it positive and generative for them. Non-Christians are finding in it a space of welcome and curiosity. They are drawn in and want to discover more of this Word, that seems to want to reveal itself to them. I have spoken to several people who were interested to find out more and actually started reading a Bible after having seen the work. This, I find most fascinating of all.”
~Martina La Trobe-Bateman
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