The Book of Mud is a manifesto, a reverie, a story of earth and water. Ali Cherri, the Paris-based Lebanese multidisciplinary artist, conceives The Book of Mud as an exploration of the past and the ways in which it inscribes itself physically: eroding, shaping, reforming, becoming itself through upheaval and destruction. In this project, Cherri is a storyteller in conversation with writers in both English and Arabic. Together they unveil the story of mud.

In this book of memory, Cherri understands mud as the vessel and the water within, as the brick that roots us to place and home, and the river that carries us to exploration elsewhere. Deeply embedded in narratives of creation, mud grounds life in a cycle that always finds its way back into the earth.

Artefacts, collected and encased in mudbrick, accompany the book to symbolize this timeless process. A silkscreen print visualizes a field of mudbricks drying in the sun, uniting earth, and water as the building blocks of civilization.