Sisters Of Survival’s Memento Mori is a contemporary illuminated manuscript on despair in the nuclear age created by Sisters Of Survival members Anne Gauldin, Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry. It is an exquisitely crafted book that came out of a movement of artists addressing the political climate of the 1980s, a period defined by the cold war and the nuclear threat.

Sisters Of Survival (S.O.S.) is an anti-nuclear performance art group founded in 1981 by Jerri Allyn, Nancy Angelo, Anne Gauldin, Cheri Gaulke and Sue Maberry. Clothing themselves in the colors of the rainbow, their imagery evoked hope, humor and a celebration of diversity. Inspired by anti-nuclear war demonstrations in Europe, S.O.S. created END OF THE RAINBOW, a three-part conceptual art project that generated dialogue between the people of North America and Western Europe about the nuclear threat. Their work included public performance art staged for the media as well as the general public, artists’ books, a billboard, slide lectures, networking with artist and activist groups, a radio program and a traveling exhibition.

More about the book:

The cover is gold-leaf stamped and letterpress-printed with leather texture on Mi-Teintes Canson paper; interior paper is Gainesborough. An accordian structure holds die-cut pages that are lushly illustrated with imagery from eclectic sources. The text is from The Fate of the Earth by Jonathan Schell and from an article by Joanna Macy in Evolutionary Blues. All quotes used by permission. Tipped-in color photographs depict the Sisters on a journey through the desert being pursued by the spectre of extinction whom they must ultimately transform.

Edition: 50. Size: 8” x 6.”
Made possible in part by a grant through the Woman’s Building from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.
Copyright 1984 Sisters Of Survival.

Out of print.