Compulsively recorded and systematically organized, A Dictionary of Steps compiles architectural diagrams of staircases. The result is a testimony to the various sculptural configurations of steps, developed and expanded upon with a kinesthetic and rhythmic language that bears similarities to Morse code. Ultimately, the reader is encouraged to take a nuanced approach to an architectural element that is often overlooked as a pragmatic and unremarkable feature of any household.
Athena Tacha details the different approaches she, her partner Richard, and several of their friends take to the conservation of resources at home. The chronicle of their varying degrees of compulsion to save food, scraps of paper, dish water, toilet water, plastic bags and other household items is an intimate portrait of personal approaches to global ecological issues.
Edition of 500 copies.
Athena Tacha shares her reflections on the small and rote habits that bring us pleasure in life. She speaks on enjoyable actions that both form and disrupt our daily rituals, and in lucid prose relays the bodily habits that bring her personal satisfaction. These range from shaking dandruff from the scalp to picking dead skin off legs, contributing to a measured account of the small, personal things that Tacha believes brings balance to a life of routine.
In this booklet Tacha’s writing takes on a diaristic tone as she describes her pre-sexual, amorous feelings towards celebrities and other people in her life.
An intimate first-person exploration of personal fears, examining how fears are more often based on imagination than experience.
"A small pamphlet offering a portrait, in writing, of the artist's mother from the perspective of an adult child: intimate, frank and epitomizing the complex relations between a parent and child." Printed Matter
The first fragment of Tacha’s on-going thorough self-analysis and description to be completed by the end of my life was recorded at the age of 38, and chronicles the artist’s history of self-scrutiny beginning with adolescence. She examines changes in her physique that have occurred since, and offers insight into their causes. A daring and unflinching self-portrait of a woman on the precipice of middle age, Tacha seems less interested in making a comment on society’s observations of women as they age as she is in documenting the process in vivid detail as a means of navigating these observations in an intimate and personal way, turning the process inward and taking ownership of aging.
Questionnaire artist Athena Tacha gave to some of her closest friends and family about herself.