The art began as part of Seagull Books’ annual catalogue, the sort of thing all publishers create to take to trade fairs and high-level palavers around the world. Designer Sunandini Banerjee sat down to think about one more edition that conformed to the unconventional, stylish creative brief of years past. “The idea of the collage came about as a way to bring in painting, photography, sculpture, newspaper clippings, text and so on,” she says. “And this allowed us to interpret every book in an artistic way. It freed up the perception of the book as just a book, and allowed it to become an art object. It becomes something with its own artistic associations and references; something to experience as art.” The delighted response to the catalogue around the world included several cries of ‘This should be hanging up on a wall!’

And so Banerjee and Seagull have gone about accomplishing just that, in The Art of the Book, on view in Kolkata this month. The digital collages are created entirely with computer software, and are ‘both an interpretation of and a response to a wide range of texts, ranging from the poetical to the philosophical to the political.’ Banerjee says the exhibition is a reaction against the pecking order of art, which often relegates computer-generated work to the bottom of the pile. “There’s really no need to create that kind of medium-based caste system,” she says. “In a sense, it is a comment on over-seriousness in art, artists and galleries.”

The Art of the Book is on view at the Seagull Arts and Media Resource Centre, Kolkata, until July 17.

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