Norwegian Wood

haruki murakami

Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood is, for Marta Ibarrondo, a reflection on the weight of chronic depression, that feeling of being shut down even when everything around is alive, like being dead in the middle of spring.

She works on hand-screened Japanese Chiyogami paper, a base that holds light and joy, and covers words from the novel with twelve thick, crude layers of black acrylic. It builds up like tar. Heavy and suffocating. This is how depression is translated into material. She leaves dust and debris on the surface as well. When one is in that state, there is a sense of neglect, of things simply accumulating over time.

And yet, even there, something can shift. If one stays with the smallest sliver of joy, it begins to hold a bit of light. The darkness stays, but it begins to soften.