This publication was created for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, to accompany Daria Martin’s film of the same name. The film was inspired by the dream paintings and diary notes of her grandmother Susi Martin, a Czech Jew whose family fled the Second World War, leaving her on her own at the age of 13. Her paintings and diary entries were created whilst undergoing Jungian Psychoanalysis, in part to help with a deep depression and trauma from her experiences during the war years.
Throughout the book, the text is set like a story, but in bright purple rather than black – adding a dreamlike quality, like the afterglow of a bright light. The design of the cover and the typography inside take inspiration from the typewriter lettering within the diary and the index cards. These are a common emblem running throughout the film, and reference Martin’s description of her work as daydream machines.
