The Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government reported that in the lead up to Christmas 2018 there were 1,753 families homeless in the Republic of Ireland. Their definition for what constitutes homeless altered in 2018, skewing this figure from the true number, which is undoubtedly higher.
One Thousand, Seven Hundred and Fifty Three is a protest book which aims to make tangible the current outrageous homelessness crisis in Ireland. The book includes a text that introduces the concept but is mainly carried by the scale of the text block and the imposing nature of the binding. The book is for the most part devoid of content, the seven printed pages include half title, title, introduction, colophon, pressmark. Each of the 1,753 empty pages dedicated to one homeless family, the scale of the situation becoming quite apparent when these pages amount to a book eight inches in thickness.
The book is made up of 110 sections of 16 pages resulting in 1760 pages total. The binding is in an adhesive-less medieval style on raised double linen chords with ebonised oak boards tapered to fit the swell of the spine. Printed in black, silver and dark green on Zerkall 140gsm smooth paper.
The type is 24pt Méridien, cast by Rainer Gerstenberg in Frankfurt. The paper is 145gsm Zerkall, kept dry by John Purcell in London. Bound by Craig Jensen and Marc Hammonds at BookLab II, San Marcos, Texas. The boards are ebonised oak, prepared by Mark Landers, also in Texas. Eight copies have been produced marked A to H, each housed in a cloth covered solander box, the final three reserved for the collaborators.
