Virginia Woolf’s numerous experiences with illness led her to write the essay On
Here’s how it came about.
In March of 2020, as lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe, Ane already had two other projects focused on Woolf under her belt — A Printing Press of One’s Own and The Mark on the Wall.
Working from her private letterpress studio at home, Ane started a third. She printed one sentence from “On Being Ill” on one sheet of paper every day. Her project ran from March 23 to Aug. 29, 2020, and she shared those pages on Instagram. She also shared her thoughts about the project with Blogging Woolf.
Through this process, she shaped a diary in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and allowed for research on pandemics by creating an artist book.
The book merges Woolf’s sentences with with my reflections on covid, pandemics, isolation, escaping reality through literature, waiting, time, art, love, protests, feminism, typesetting, printing, family, small stuff, big stuff. – Ane
The publication also contains reflections on teaching during the pandemic in the spring of 2021, along with insights and works by master’s students in graphic design and illustration at The Oslo National Academy of The Arts, using Woolf’s essay as a mirror for their own pandemic experiences.
The digital book edition
With an introduction by Mark Hussey, the book is available as a digital book edition of 150. It is now available through several independent bookshops, which are handling distribution. They include the following:
Copies will also be available at the 33rd Annual International Woolf conference in June.
Support and gratitude
The publication is supported with research funds from The Oslo National Academy of The Arts. Graphic design was done by Tiril Haug Johne and Victoria Meyer.
Ane expresses special thanks to the Oslo National Academy of the Arts Class of 2022: Araiz Mesanza, Embla Sunde Myrva, Kristine Lie Øverland Emil Holmberg Lewe, Ruth Emilie Rustad, Nicolo Groenier, her former professor Alan Mackenzie-Robinson, former president of the International Virginia Woolf Society Dr. Benjamin Hagen, the Woolf community, her husband Truls and her son Pil.
Ane Thon Knutsen in her home printshop with a volume of On Being Ill, her pandemic project originally shared on Instagram.
About Ane Thon Knutsen
Ane is internationally known for her letterpress-focused installations and artists’ books. The associate professor of graphic design at the Oslo Academy of the Arts has won numerous awards for her work. She owns and works from her private letterpress studio in Oslo.
Ane Thon Knutsen at her exhibition “Printed Works: Adaptations of Virginia Woolf” at the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf at Florida Gulf Coast University, Jun3 8-11, 2023.
She also debuted her installation, “Printed Words: Adaptations of Virginia Woolf,” at University Archives and Special Collections at the Florida Gulf Coast University library during the 32nd Annual International Conference on Virginia Woolf: Virginia Woolf and Ecologies, June 8-11, 2023.
In “Printed Works,” the self-taught typesetter who has exhibited other letterpress projects and installations related to Woolf, adapted a selection of Virginia Woolf’s self-published short stories. The exhibit focused on Woolf’s poetic short stories “Blue” and “Green.” The printed pages were collected and are being stored in book form in FGCU Bradshaw Library’s Archives and Special Collections.
More coming up
In addition, Ane will display another installation, Woolf’s “Kew Gardens,” May 16 – June 11 for the 33rd International Virginia Woolf Conference. The adaptation of Woolf’s short story consists of 1,514 letterpress-printed sheets of kozo.
According to Ane, it is an “organic book allowing you to walk through the pages, like insects in a flowerbed.”
