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Vulnerable (2025) continues Hill’s exploration of translation, informed by Walter Benjamin’s idea of a “higher language” that exists between linguistic systems. This inquiry first took form in the artist book Siento y siento, developed in print:praxis at QCAD. In Vulnerable, the projection aguas tranquilas unsettles the notion of still water, echoing Roni Horn’s meditations on fluidity and reflection. Acrylic is used in dialogue with the artist books of Adele Outteridge and Wim de Vos, while laser etching recalls the incised mark of the copper plate. The translucency of the acrylic allows language, surface and light to converge.
Hill examines the relationship between the page spread and the gallery wall as parallel sites of communication. Vulnerable is the second installation in an ongoing series that expands the concerns of Siento y siento from the intimate space of the book into a spatial, experiential encounter.
Within the context of this exhibition, Vulnerable responds to the 2002 QCAD folio box Lure, which featured Outteridge and de Vos, both influential figures in artist books and frequent users of acrylic. By adopting acrylic and laser etching as a contemporary counterpart to copper plate processes, Hill builds a material bridge between 2002 and 2025. The work aligns with the curatorial focus on looking back at the folio box as a connecting structure while looking forward to how printmaking practices continue to evolve.
