No Spirit For Me: Case File

No Spirit For Me: Case File was designed and printed by Rowan Renee at Center for Book Arts. It features appropriated police evidence photographs from their father’s case file, alongside descriptive text based on the memories stirred by the places and objects depicted.

The deluxe edition book includes ten hand-printed photo-lithographs on French Paper that are individually signed and numbered. In the standard edition, these images are laser printed on card stock. In both editions, each print is enclosed in a vellum sleeve with laser-printed excerpts from the case file. They are accompanied by a set of ten cards letterpress printed with the artist’s descriptive text. All ten sets are organized in a hand-made accordion file, letterpress printed with polymer plates, hand-set type, and gold-foil. The book is typeset in New Calson, Modern Italic and Elite.

No Spirit For Me: Case File uses the book-form to create a more intimate version of the immersive installation of the same name, which was presented within a fictitious police evidence room. The No Spirit For Me installation was originally created at the University of Michigan in 2019. It has been included in the critically acclaimed exhibition Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, at MoMA PS1 and now touring nationally. Books from this edition are held in library collections at The MET, The University of Michigan, CCS: Bard, The University of Connecticut and the Ringling School of Art and Design.