Tara Books is a publishing co-operative in Chennai, Southern India. A group of writers, designers and artists, they produce beautiful books for both adults and children. Often politically or socially driven, Tara is a fierely independent group dedicated rich content.
Fingerprint, for example, is both surprising and impressive:
When designer and artist Andrea Anastasio visited the United States some years ago, he was fingerprinted (like everyone else) by the airport immigration authorities. This moment — both banal and ominous — stayed with him until it worked its way into his art. The result is Fingerprint, a visual fable that celebrates resistance to state surveillance and control. The artist’s fingerprints, screen printed onto the pages of the book, create progressively complex patterns and sequences, transporting the fingerprint from the world of forensics and law into the freeing world of art and imagination.
Screen printing the book makes each fingerprint feel like the artist has applied his inky fingers to each leaf; prints stand off the sheet just enough. And where they are overlayed you can literally feel the build up of colour. But as the synopsis suggests, the pages tell a story. At first, one of oppression as a single black fingerprint becomes gradually overwhelmed by others but as the book progresses a more optimistic sense develops. A brighter future.
It's a beautiful, appropriately tactile and thought provocing book.
You can browse Tara's catalogue here.
