Looky Lookie: The Tale of Three Black Boxes

Shinsuke Minegishi's The Tale of Three Black Boxes is made up of spare text juxtaposed with six engravings created by the artist. The six pages were sewn together with a black, paper wrap with a single signature pamphlet stitch (those who have taken our Book Arts 101 classes know what that is.) Along with the storybook, Minegishi included a companion case that includes the six prints from the engravings incorporated with colored woodcuts of windows where the engravings can be seen. These prints are textured because of multiple inkings.

The story of the family of black boxes is simple. They are outcast in an all white-boxed city, so the black boxes decide to explore the world, where they encounter various animals in numerous locations. The black boxes ultimately end up living on the moon. The story & images make the artificial & geometric stand out against the living & biological, which are two opposites that humans try to put together all the time (example, trees in the city.) This idea is explored further in the extra prints, when the engravings are seen through the "peek-holes," which are created out of unnatural shapes & objects. These "peek-holes" transcend time & space, as the boxes do in the story, yet the boxes are three-dimensional & cannot actually travel in time. Another contradiction.