Dana Lixenberg – The Last Days of Shishmaref

Book coverDana Lixenberg – The Last Days of Shishmaref
Book coverDana Lixenberg – The Last Days of Shishmaref
Book coverDana Lixenberg – The Last Days of Shishmaref
Book coverDana Lixenberg – The Last Days of Shishmaref

Leslie Eutuk is wearing pink sunglasses with flowers on the frame. Fred Charlie Weyiouanna has soaped himself with Teen Spirit shower gel. Amos Olanna is cuddling his tabby.   

But Leslie, Fred and Amos have to move: they live in Shishmaref, a coastal village in the far west of Alaska. The ice that has protected the people there from storms coming in off the Bering Strait since time immemorial has now started to fail them.

The story gives its teller opportunities galore to serve up a goodly portion of climate schmaltz, but the panel soon realized that in The Last Days of Shishmaref this trap has been consistently avoided.

This is because the story told here is about the people, and not about humankind. Each chapter focuses on just a few, brown of skin, dark of hair, Asiatic in aspect. They are introduced to us in a brief text which is followed by a series of photographs showing the life they lead, and finally by an account of some other aspect of the Shishmaref story, e.g. Relocation, Cultural Identity or Subsistence. By way of memento each series of images concludes with an almost boring photo of the main protagonist, the ocean.

The text sections are printed in grey on a coloured ground, sometimes with too little contrast for the older reader. Some of the line drawings sink into this ground. To set against this, the text pages have a thin border in a contrasting colour and that tends to brighten the page up a bit.

The book’s unspectacular format lifts it out of the corner of art and into that of documentary. The dust jacket is deliberately too short, reaching halfway up the word Shishmaref on the cover beneath. Grim.

Edition: 2008
Language: English / Dutch
Final editor: Iris Sikking, Bas Vroege (Paradox)
Publisher: Paradox, Edam, episode publishers, Rotterdam
Graphic designer: Mevis & Van Deursen
Lithographer: Studio ZieZo, Maarssen
Printer: Slinger, Alkmaar
Binder: Hexspoor, Boxtel
Size book block (w x h x d in mm): 165 x 224 x 18
Number of pages: 208 p.
Print run: 2,000, in two editions
Price: € 35
ISBN: 978 90 5973 110 3 (E) / 978 90 5973 111 0 (D)
Font and foundry: Bureau Grotesk Five Three, Bureau Grotesk One Seven
Binding style: sewn Otabind with flaps and jacket
Material: 100gsm Munken Print White, 150gsm Chromomat (interior), 240gsm Lynx (cover), 90gsm Chromomat (jacket)