Environmental Risk Index

Society of Hermits, 2024

3.5” x 5” x 2” when closed

14” x 16.5” when open

Edition of 10

$850

Contact to purchase

Environmental Risk Index is a small receptacle that fits easily in one’s hands. So little is

revealed at first, just as there is a process to understanding, a shift in space and thinking must

occur. The book object is bound in antique linen, simultaneously rough and worn smooth in

places. The images within are woodblock prints of glacial erratics, great stones moved by the

inconceivable force of ancient glaciers and ultimately left behind. Handmade paper crushed

and heavily inked until it resembles stone, thin sheets of mica, and finally a text unfolds from

this experience, and within it all, a small book like an ancient, unearthed object that guides us

ultimately towards hope. The commercial media’s language relating violence speaks in a

language of only statistics and not human experience, while equally dense and unmoving is the

way the conversation around environmental damage sidesteps the experience of loss and

relays only facts and numbers. Bleak though this may seem, one must go deeper to

understand, to find empathy, and always retain the hope that rests in the still center of

everything.