The Missing Volume

In 2001, ‘Qifar’, the first published comic book by Muhannad Shono, was banned and removed from bookshops across Saudi Arabia.

The Missing Volume is the artist's memory of searching for his book in shops across Riyadh, scanning the rows of other titles, only to find his missing. Upon questioning the shop owners, Shono located the remaining copies relegated to back storage rooms and hidden in compartments beneath the displays.

The installation gives that absence a body: dark, page-like strips suspended in cascading rows, at once volumes pulled from their shelves and the redaction marks that struck them through, present in the room but no longer legible.