Book artist, designer and writer Ruchika Nambiar produces a limited edition of five artist books that make a therapy transcript fully available and entirely unreadable at the same time, using mirrors and a flag book structure to explore the gap between transparency and vulnerability.
In 2018, Ruchika Nambiar recorded a therapy session with herself. The full, unedited transcript of that session is printed in Record Withheld, her 2025 artist book. Every word is there. None of it can be read.
The book is constructed as a flag book, a structure that fragments text across a series of interlocking pages, and uses mirrors through which those fragments are reflected back to the reader. The result is a transcript that is technically revealed and practically concealed: present in its entirety, and impossible to access.
“The book may seem like an act of extreme transparency and vulnerability,” Nambiar says, “but that’s exactly where its deception lies. The seeming openness of the gesture in fact masks the exact opposite: an acute inability to be truly vulnerable.”
The form does not illustrate that idea. It enacts it.
This kind of precision in the relationship between structure and content is characteristic of Nambiar’s practice. An alum of RISD, where she currently teaches under the Department of Illustration, she approaches the word “book” with deliberate looseness. “I treat the word ‘book’ very loosely,” she says. “I have a very form-fluid practice, and for me, a book is the ideal container that can hold all the different things I like to do, across visual art, miniatures, graphic design, writing and research.” Record Withheld draws on all of those registers, combining text, image-making and object design into a single interactive form that tests out a new dynamic between content and concealment.
The edition is limited to five copies. One will soon join the Special Collections of The Clark Art Institute’s library in Massachusetts, where Nambiar’s 2023 artist book Home vs Home already resides. Those wishing to acquire a copy for a museum, library or personal collection are invited to reach out to the artist directly.
Ruchika Nambiar is a book artist, designer and writer based in the United States. Her work spans artist books, graphic memoirs, miniature dioramas and interactive narratives. Her artist books have been acquired by The Clark Art Institute and Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Her upcoming book Notes to Self (2026) was awarded a 2025 RISCA Make Art Grant.
ARTIST LINKS
ruchikanambiar.com
@thatruchika
Record Withheld, 2025. Artist book, flag book structure with mirrors. Limited edition of 5. Photography: Ruchika Nambiar.
