The Minutia installation is comprised of eleven conceptual books each sitting on lecterns arranged in a thirty- foot circle. The development and research for this installation is funded by a project research grant from the University of Calgary. This project was inspired by a quote gleaned from a lunchtime conversation I had with a colleague at the Glenbow Museum in Calgary, Alberta. This conversation touched on the words written by a Chinese immigrant to Canada who had just moved to Vancouver from Hong Kong. In a letter home to his wife to encourage her to move to his newly adapted country, he penned the words ”the first time I heard the sound of a page turning”. This was in reference to the relative quiet of his newfound land. I found this sentence fragment quite profound. I turn pages every day, yet was completely unaware of the sound of pages turning.

This notion can be extrapolated across the way we experience our life- world. The title of the installation is the word minutia generally meaning minute detail and often associated with meaningless detail. It can be argued that minutiae make up the fabric of our existence. The essence of this work is that awareness of minutiae is fundamental to meaningfulness. This installation is a play on that concept. Words from the English language are used as vehicles to explore this concept. This is linked to the contention that our experience of the world is defined through our language. This installation takes components from language, isolates them and recontextualizes them to create a stage for an exploration of the meaningless/ meaningful dynamic. Our levels of awareness of our experience of our life-world are challenged through the manipulation of the language we use on a daily basis

Each word from the sentence fragment ”the first time I heard the sound of a page turning” is the subject of a conceptual book that comprises the main part of the Minutia installation. The eleven books are titled accordingly: The Book of The; The First; The Book of Time; The Book of I; The Book of Heard; Another Book of The; The Book of Sound; The Book of Of; The Book of A; The Book of Pages; and The Book of Turning. The eleven books are conceptually diverse. This installation is being exhibited in western and eastern Canada. Individual books of Minutia are available directly from the author/artist in paperback form ($24.95 plus shipping).