Her Mother’s Voice

1996-98

26 x 23 x 2.5 cm

134pp, 129 photographic and video still images.

25 copies signed and dated by the artist.

Designed and printed by the artist on handmade Japanese Tosa Shoji paper.

Hand bound in Japanese K Yoseishi and Tosa Shoji papers, presented in a cloth-bound solander box.

Published by Lightline Press, 99 Camden Mews, London NW1 9BU. ISBN 0-9540632-0-1

Her Mother’s Voice focuses on memory and an individual’s history, which is also the history of the artist and on a broader scale that of the forced exoduses and resettlements of a generation of Russian and European Jews.

Lijn’s parents belonged to a generation of Jews who faced extermination. Through their stories, as in a cracked and smokey mirror, Lijn sees herself reflected as if she were formed before her birth by the choices which they made.

In Her Mother’s Voice Lijn asked her mother to remember her life. She then transcribed the oral tapes, endeavouring to retain the unique character of her voice.

Lijn has edited, illustrated and printed the book entirely on her own computer, printing with a low-end printer on handmade Japanese paper. The result is an unusual combination of high and low technology, of oral history presented on the delicate medium of rice paper thus mirroring the fragility of human life.