Edge Habitat Materials

"Edge Habitat Materials" is a survey of all works made by Helen Mirra between 1995 and 2009, together with three accompanying texts. In his essay on walking as minimal aesthetic practice, Bradin Cormack places Mirra s walks and the overlapping exhibitions that variously index them in the context of her earlier indexical works, in proximity to a range of literary engagements with walking as a form of environmental belonging, and in contact with a philosophical aesthetics that allows doing and perception to be simultaneously personal and exemplary. Selections from Mark Siderits and Sh ry Katsura s translation of N g rjuna s "M"" ""lamadhyamakak"" ""rik"" " are also included, as is an essay by Tom Wessels on beavers abandoning their ponds. Additions to the book sent intermittently to readers who mail in a postcard included in the book include texts by Liz Kotz, Yuri Tsivian, and Alise Upitis, and a bookmark made from a remnant 16mm cloth banding.

The survey is organized according to primary material rock, wood, textile, and usw (und so weiter) and includes line drawings by Mirra of certain of her works. Models for this publication include "The Audubon Society"" ""s Field Guide to North American Mushrooms" (1981), Daniel Spoerri s "An Anecdoted Topography of Chance" (1966), and Richard Tuttle s "Small Sculptures of the 70s" (1998). "Edge Habitat Materials" is produced by the MIT List Visual Arts Center and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University."