Leporello book of fears
(Slavic fairytale interpretation)
This is a project I made in School of Visual Communication. The task was to create Leporello book. The only limit was a way you plot the story: minimum text, maximum illustrations, and in a way you open the book you learn its story.
I had no idea for the tale but the idea to make it useful and interactive for both children and adults. I wanted to make it a playbook, with pop-up art and some philosophy.
And I started to dig into the theme of fears. We all fear something different. Some fear spiders, some fear of physical pain and some fear to lose their loved ones. So I decided to make a small research and see is there something in common of all these fears. I asked my teachers, friends, and classmates to write 3 main things they scared most of all.
Here some of my favorites:
- get rabies from a dog bite;
- gigantic mosquito;
After having this list of fears I noticed that we usually fear things that may cause damage either to our body, mind or soul (personal concepts of the world). Yet, catching it didn't help me myself to get rid of any fear but get even more (especially when I tried to actually imagine how something crawling into my ear or the death of someone I love).
Living these fears as they are was not an option either. I had to come up with 'some other bright idea'.
I noticed that no matter how scared my nephew at night, he always wakes up with a smile when the sun wakes him up. And no matter how good or bad the day was to me I always chew it before I fell asleep.
The only thing that separates day and night is time. The only thing that makes all the fears visible to us is our own attention. And if we will let ourselves to face them, chew them up carefully, we will finally see the sun rising up. Eventually, it's only the time we delay to solve the problem. Of course, some problems need more time to be solved due to the lack of resources, and with some fears, you just have to accept the reality but the thing is... The sun will rise anyway, and just be reminding it yourself may help you to get off the shadow of your own fears, your own attention to the things you fear to happen.
Mneh. Feel free to agree or disagree :))
After I thought this theory through, I started making a draft of my Leporello book.
I remembered one old Slavic fairytale Kolobok. The pretty weird story about the old couple who made a child from a leftover flower scratch. They called him Kolobok. It was a piece of dough without hands and legs (kinda representing the way we feel when we are about to face our fears). They gave him a name Kolobok.
Once Kolobok ran away from them to the forest where he met various animals: rabbit, wolf, bear, and fox. All of them wanted to eat him. Well, he is just a piece of dough and the life in the forest is pretty rough, lol. (For the fear theory, the forest is our imagination or our mind that keeps creating occasions that make reality from our fears. Animals are kinda these occasions).
Yep, there is the sun at the end but to fade away fears we need to capture its light with attention. As it said... to let them find their end.
Look how it is made for play (the reader can also create his/her own ball of fear to go through the Leporello as a labyrinth for fun and need).
That's it. Thanks for watching and reading. Hope it was useful.
HAVE GOOD DREAMS AND FEWER FEARS:))
