A slim, pamphlet-bound booklet with a monochromatic cover stamped with minimal text, the average passport has a quiet and understated vibe. At first glance, it’s common: not asking for much visual consideration, generally understood as a utilitarian legal document, a form of identification that enables travel between (typically) international locations. Yet to open it up, literally and figuratively, suggests that the passport is another thing entirely, exposing a world in which notions of passage, permission, identity and borders are writ in intimate detail.

Crossing the Line: The Passport Re-Imagined, is an exhibit of artist books at the Bainbridge Island Museum
of Art that takes us to that place. Twelve artists from across the United States, commissioned by the Cynthia Sears  Artists’ Book Collection, are derivations and reactions to the passport. Northwest artists Shu-Ju Wang, Kitty Koppelman, and Carletta Carrington-Wilson, and offer artworks that expose stories having to do with movement, race, and identity.

Carletta Carrington-Wilson constructed Passport to a Past Port as an homage to an unknown, young female slave whose travel imposed on her. The horrors that these “unwilling travelers” were forced to endure are revealed in her sculptural accordion book’s surface painting. The accompanying Court$hip Gazette is print handout that narrates the ship’s circumstances and surroundings including the poem, “how far Calabar” written by Carrington-Wilson.

Shu-Ju Wang grapples with barriers to passage in her Passport, fabricated and stitched from weed suppressing landscape fabric and plant material. The contents narrate deep accounts of personal experiences with real obstacles to free movement that we encounter now and throughout history. The plant forms and garden references stand in as metaphors and offer structural support.

Kitty Koppelman also engages with ideas of permission. Gender Passport doubles as both proclamation and protection. Each spread of this passport-sized book is rendered with a balance of soft and bright colors, and reduction linocut and letterpress to convey a sense of stability and humanity, of safety, and acceptance.

Each work on display—the twelve commissioned works and passport-related works from additional artists in the book arts collection—occupies its own territory within the gallery cases, inviting investigation and interpretation on a personal level. This exhibit is worth a journey of your own to walk among what is possibly the largest publicly-accessible, privately-owned collection of artist books in the United States.

Kristin L. Tollefson
Kristin L. Tollefson is an artist and educator based in Tacoma, Washington.

The Passport Re-Imagined is on view through February 23 at Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, located at 550 Winslow Way on Bainbridge Island, Washington. The museum is free and open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Visit www.biartmuseum.org for more information.