Colossal Equine Statue
Published by ARP
Colossal Equine Statue is made up of a trilogy of constellation essays that track a number of recurring themes such as historical relation, mourning, and viewership. Many of these pieces have been conceived as part of Wilson’s visual art practice, and draw on a wide variety of source material and inspiration, from encyclopedias and reference books to poetry, philosophy, and recipes. The overall shape of the book is intended to represent points in a constellation and imagine how one might look at a sky filled with stars and find a world of meaning with many intricate odes of possibility for navigation. Unlike many works of historical non-fiction, Colossal Equine Statue uses a constantly shifting voice which swings between reporting, personal anecdote, enumeration, criticism, ekphrasis, and poetry to create unexpected encounters between different times and conceptions of reality.
A Landscape Photograph in the Land of the Dead
Published by G44 Centre for Contemporary Photography
A Landscape Photograph in the Land of the Dead is the second volume in the Writer-in-Residence book series, featuring essays and artwork by Nic Wilson. This collection examines the complexities of how images operate, their metadata and the bizarre and occult machinations of photography itself. The 124-page publication debuts the new essay, “Somewhere Yet Unknown,” and features an interview between curator Lillian O’Brien Davis and Nic Wilson, annotated by curator, writer and interdisciplinary artist, Blair Fornwald.
Conceived as a collaborative project between Wilson and Art Director/Designer Mark Bennett, the book design responds to the concepts generated during Wilson’s time as the 2022 Writer-in-Residence. Through the inclusion of image portfolios, drawings, annotations, documentation photographs and graphic elements, the project crosses into the realm of an artists’ book and takes up the work of seeking out ghosts—examining practices concerning death, memorials and cultural memory.
Photos by Caeden Wigston
The Coward
Published by Remai Modern
The Coward is a collection of notes and images that prod at the fuzzy figure of the Coward. How does one recognize the Coward? What earns this designation and what reaction does it illicit? What does the Coward do and how do they do it? This publication was commissioned as part of Remai Modern’s RBC Emerging Artist Series.
Learn Spelling
Published by Umbrella Projects
Named after the menu item that allows you to train your computer to acknowledge certain words, Learn Spelling uses a collection of unrecognized terms from the artist’s writings as a springboard for a larger investigation into how a living language evolves. Examples in the book, which include queer slang, loan words, Indigenous place and nation names, Arab and Japanese names, as well as terms specific to art theory, reveal a Eurocentric bias in Word Processing applications. They also double as an inadvertent diary of the artist’s writing. Hand-bound in an edition of 100 copies, the book features a collection of autobiographical anecdotes alongside observations and examples of the way “written English is used as a tool to create and legitimize some world views and negate others.”
