Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press ISBN 978-1-913983-97-0 (EVERY WORD UNMADE)

21 Mar-25 Apr 2026

Overview

ISBN 978-1-913983-97-0 (EVERY WORD UNMADE) is an exhibition in the form of a poem and it is Banner’s most recent publication. Incorporating works from 1996 to 2026, it embodies a span of time and at the same time it is an anti-chronological, momentary, present-tense reading. 

Registering this exhibition as a publication typifies her iconoclastic attitude to publishing.

Banner readdresses her seminal THE NAM, in today's context, alongside new works including Vulva Volvoand Zero Poem, in a continued engagement with linguistic power structures, physical bodies, temporality, conflict and hubris. 

The exhibition takes its name from Every Word Unmade a neon alphabet hand-blown by the artist, in which the struggle against the medium, and with language itself, is evident.

This is the first in a new series of annual exhibitions entitled Studies at The Common Guild, developed in conjunction with the Roberts Institute of Art.⁠

About the artist:

Fiona Banner aka The Vanity Press explores gender, language, interpretation and publishing through a range of media, including drawing, sculpture, performance and moving image. The struggle between language and its limitations is central to Banner’s conceptual approach. With an interest in how conflict is mythologised through popular culture, her early work took the form of ‘wordscapes’ or ‘still films’, blow-by-blow accounts in her own words of feature films, from war movies to porn, from intimate scenes to historical events. These works evolved into solid single blocks of text, often the same shape and size as a cinema screen.

In 1997 Banner started her own publishing imprint The Vanity Press, with her monumental The Nam. She has since published many works, as books, sculptural objects or performances. In 2009 she issued herself an ISBN number and registered herself as a publication under her own name.