I was invited by the Moleskine Foundation to create the book, which will become part of its collection. The Foundation is a non-profit organization that pursues a mission of “Creativity for Social Change.” It holds one of the largest collections of artists’ notebooks in the world, with more than 1,300 donated by artists, designers, writers and other makers that include William Kentridge, Patricia Urquiola, Sigur Ros, Mary Ellen Mark, Todd Oldham, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Pentagram partner Paula Scher, among many others. The collection is freely accessible via an online archive and is showcased at museums, art festivals, exhibitions and biennials all over the world. The Foundation operates independently from the Moleskine Company, whose financial contributions help sustain its programs.

The Foundation suggested the topic “What comes first?” to me, which is the 2022 theme for its educational program, AtWork. The initiative uses the notebooks to help inspire the creative process in young people. In a workshop conducted by the artist, students explore issues such as identity, culture and community through self-reflection, and as a final project, produce their own personalized notebook.

The question “What comes first?” personally resonated with me. At the time, I was about to turn 40 and decided to use the notebook to reflect on my life so far. As a designer and artist, I like to start with questions and then investigate possible answers through my creative practice, while exposing the process at the same time.

I have used Moleskine notebooks for over 20 years, and welcomed the opportunity to support the mission of the Foundation and to inspire young people.

In the notebook, I use the simple activity of hand-stitching to create a complex and detailed account of my existence, marking all the life events, starting from my birth on July 24, 1981, that I recall or had an impact on me. The approach utilizes the principles of “data humanism”––using data to uncover human stories behind the numbers and statistics.

I wanted to capture the totality of my life in paper and thread––both key events that I felt were pivotal to the trajectory of my life, and the mundane of the day-to-day,

To begin, I disassembled three whole Moleskine notebooks, and then re-assembled their pages in an accordion. I then stitched the pages with thread—14,496 stitches to be exact, one for each day of my life on this earth until now. The color of the thread is white, almost the exact same color as the paper itself. The stitches are almost imperceptible.

On top of these stitches I then made second stitches using colored thread to individually mark important moments to me, moments I either just remember or had previously noted in the form of my own personal, ongoing data collection: from my first word to my first love, from important life achievements to health scares, from losses in my family to break-ups. The final result is a visual archive of my memories, a meditation on the individual threads that weave together to make up my identity—tangibly recorded in a handmade “book of life.”  

It has been a laborious reflective exercise. Acknowledging the passing of time and the days I have lived by physically marking each one, and then weaving subjective memories on it as a way of asking myself who I am now, what has made me who I am and where have I gotten so far.

Flipping through the book, I am struck by how every day is rendered the same, one stitch after another—when in actuality, I know that each day has its own identity. The book makes me question: Who am I now? What has made me, me? And what has led me to where I am? 

I am a data observer, a data collector, and a believer that counting something means it matters. To expend time and effort with your past is a particularly potent form of self-awareness. It’s an exercise to document existence, a record of time, the happenings and places that make our lives what they are.

I see it as a conversational device, the beginning of a conversation, as I see all forms of data.

The notebook will become part of the Moleskine Foundation Collection.

See full gallery with process pictures below