Daniela Comani
The Beginning The End
2020, archival pigment print, 70 x 50 cm and 210 x 390 cm, and artist book

The Beginning The End is a collection of quotes taken from 212 novels, and involved writing one book with two parts that meet in the middle. I collected two quotes per novel: the first sentence (The Beginning) and the last sentence (The End).
The Beginning is a text-collage that formed a new narrative and, through the symmetry, The End becomes a story of coincidence.
Sometimes, I changed the quotes minimally. I removed the proper names, gender and the third person tense and turned them into the first (female) person as an act of appropriation.

The Beginning The End is also a wall installation consisting of two framed prints (each 70 x 50 cm) and a large print on the wall (210 x 390 cm).

In the framed prints (diptych) you can read the same story of the book in two separate parts The Beginning and The End as text images.

The large paper print is composed of pictures of my 424 index cards that I used during the process of making The Beginning The End.

Installation photo: Alessandro Fiamingo