Moby-Dick, or The Whale, Herman Melville

A hand-transcription of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick, or The Whale written on remnants of archival paper and Samuels’ drawings that have been recycled and painted over and, in places, drawn and collaged on with images that pertain to the specific text. Each page of the book is hand-written as a horizontal row of the drawing, starting with “Call me Ishmael” at the top of the drawing.

Samuels chose Moby-Dick, or The Whale because of Melville’s descriptions of confrontations with “the other” and his archiving and cataloguing of information about whales and the world. In Chapter Three, Ishmael and Queequeg share a room and a bed at the Spouter-Inn. Ishmael describes his terror in meeting Queequeg. Despite cultural, racial, and language differences, the chapter ends with Ishmael’s statement, “I turned in, and never slept better in my life.”

Title: Moby-Dick, Herman Melville 

Size: 8 feet x 47 feet (w x h)
Materials: paper, ink
Date: 2015
Photographed by: Thomas Little