If you're dissecting it, IT'S ALREADY DEAD
If you're dissecting it, ITS ALREADY DEAD
2025-26
Caxton Club Chicago Winter 2025 Grant Award Winner
Anxiety has a function, it's a natural response to perceived threats. For me and many others though, anxiety interferes with life persistently and excessively. It not only strives to keep me physically safe, but succeeds in making me second guess every detail until I’m detached from the reality of my situation. Suddenly I’m living in a hell of my own creation, and I’ve removed all fun and whimsy from my life. My new book “If You’re Dissecting it, it’s Already Dead” references how anxiety affects the physical body and how the urge to tear apart every detail of an event kills the natural feeling it provokes. This is similar to dissecting an animal to learn more about it, yes more information is gained, but the life force has left the animal and how it naturally exists can no longer be observed. While experiencing the book, the reader will dissect the rat and view the words that are pressed into each part of its body. The rat is dirty, and ugly, but also a peaceful mammal that lives alongside us in the city. The rat as a symbol for anxiety relies on us to survive, but to us, it’s a pest that we spend lots of time trying to shut out. “If You’re Dissecting it, it’s Already Dead” forces the reader to spend time with the dissectable rat and reflect on what in their life they anxiously dissect in order to feel more in control.
The poem inside reads: Whenever I peel back the skin - inside flesh
And crack open the ribs - inside behind ribs
There is no life inside of the heart - heart
I've withered my intution - spine
To soothe the brain in my skull - brain
Just look! - eye
Just feel! - foot
Swallow your pride - throat
Trust your gut - stomach
Purge negativity - intenstines
Overthinking and over analyzing separates the body from the mind - tail
If you're dissecting it, IT'S ALREADY DEAD: Process
2025-2026
The book was made in the shape of a rat, with the spine placed along the highest point of its back. The cover featured the title *If You’re Dissecting It, It’s Already Dead* in bright red, with *IT’S ALREADY DEAD* emphasized in larger type. Opening the book revealed a cross-section of the rat’s interior, including a rib cage, heart, spine, skull, brain, eye, foot, stomach, and intestines. Each component unfolded to reveal text, creating layered pages that guided the reader through a poem about anxious dissection and the destruction of an event’s original nature. The colophon was hidden on the underside of the rat beneath a tuft of fur. The paper was hand-dyed with watercolor and ink to create organic, wet-looking color variation. Subtle differences between sheets allowed for layered details like ears and fur. Each body part was uniquely colored, and the text was letterpressed in complementary inks so it appeared embedded in the paper, reinforcing the connection between the type and the body itself.
Letterpress Printing was done on a Vandercook Universal 1 in the typeface Garamond.
To the right is the mockup used to propose the project to the Caxton Club Chicago.
