‘Book without a spine’ is a paginated presentation of the ways in which the twin vectors of de- and re-construction con/dis-figure the human body. An expanding constellation of pages bear upon their surfaces various figures-of-thought: musings, drafts, diagrams and models. Conceived as a conversation with Bruno Munari (1907-1998), the pages copy, continue and counter the late Italian designer’s fantasies from a vantage of Indic body-centric design principles.

This work is one instalment in Kiran Kumār’s long-term artistic research ‘Epistolary Ancestries’, a corpus of ten open letters addressed to adopted ancestors. The letters cumulatively essay a critical historiography of dance as a trifold practice of art, science and ritual, and in so doing, reimagine the role of dance in shaping our present and in mobilising a plurality of ancestral futures.