THIS LAND

Artist Book (Limited Edition) + Boxed Multi-Part Work
 Conceived as a performative object and intended for long-term institutional stewardship.

Positioning

THIS LAND confronts the internment of Ukrainian immigrants and their families in Canada through archival fragments and photographic sequence. Rather than offering a closed historical account, the work reframes historical research into a durational encounter, inviting sustained attention to how state violence is transmitted, preserved, and encountered through the book form. Conceived as a performative artist book, the project advances Maruschak’s sustained investigation into testimony, archive, and material translation.

How the Book Performs

THIS LAND activates meaning through material encounter rather than representation. Sequencing, pacing, and restraint structure the reader’s movement through the volume, foregrounding absence as an active condition. Photographic images and documentary traces generate tension between interior experience and public record, while negative space and pause operate as structural devices of attention.

Structure & Form

The book unfolds as a deliberate visual and textual sequence composed of photographic images, documentary traces, and calibrated negative space. Repetition and sparseness function as formal mechanisms that render absence legible as evidence rather than as gap. Text appears in isolated fragments, forming a parallel register between interior voice and external archive.

Narrative Presence

A fictional figure, Anna, serves as a narrative conduit. She is not a discrete biography, but a composite presence through which displacement, endurance, and witness are articulated. This structure allows the work to hold historical specificity while resisting singular representation.

Editions

Regular Edition
Variant Edition
Extraordinary Edition

All editions issued with colophon and documentation for long-term institutional stewardship.

Materials & Production

Archival papers
Photographic printing processes
Hand-bound

Materials are selected for both provenance and preservation. Production decisions privilege durability, legibility, and ethical care.

Relationship to Larger Practice

THIS LAND exists within Maruschak’s long-term research into histories of internment and displacement, including the photographic and time-based project THIS LAND IS MY LAND. While related by subject, the book is conceived as an autonomous performative work that advances her sustained investigation into testimony, archive, material translation, and the book as a site of witness.

A collection of four hardcover books with decorative spines, standing upright on a white surface against a white background.
A set of books or folders with maps and historical images, some open to display contents, along with a vintage black-and-white photograph of two children.
Collection of documents including a photograph of a young girl with braided hair, an old handwritten document, a folded map, a sticker indicating land in Western Canada, and a blue booklet.
An open photo album with a black-and-white photograph of a woman and a young girl on the left page. The woman is standing, wearing a coat, and the girl is standing beside her. The right page contains a vintage illustrated postcard of a steamship with
Close-up of a colorful patterned sewing box with a textured brown lid and red storage compartments, resting on a decorative tiled surface.
Open box with colorful intricate pattern on outer border, and 'This Land' written on inside lid, with red interior and background.

Held in Selected Institutional Collections

Library of Congress — Extraordinary Edition.

Colophon (PDF)

Publication details and production credits. Available soon.

Institutional Programming

Artist Books Unshelved — Cynthia Sears Collection, Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA)
Watch on YouTube


Inquiries

For institutional inquiries regarding editions, availability, or documentation:

Lesia Maruschak
lesiamaruschak.com

Availability:
One copy remains for acquisition.
Artist proofs of the three editions held by the artist.
Distribution through Two Ponds Press.