Iela-maris-silentbooks — Robin Mitchell Cranfield

Iela Mari’s Silent Books: Creating an Image-based Language for a Media-Saturated Landscape

This video essay on Iela Mari is adapted from a public talk for the Alcuin Society (archived event page) and features Enzo Mari, Bruno Munari, and Katsumi Komagata, John Berger, Leo Lionni, Mario Lodi, Fr. Lorenzo Milani, and Michele Mari.

Designers Bruno Munari, Enzo Mari, and Iela Mari were part of a gentle revolution in Italian design, education, and image-driven publishing in the 60s, creating bright sparks of excitement and hope during an increasingly pessimistic period. They were helped by local publishers including Einaudi, Bompiani, Muggiani, Emme Edizioni, Adelphi, and Corraini. In the 1990s Katsumi Komagata picked up this torch and carried it into the 21st century with both a series of silent books of his own and a gallery and publishing house in Tokyo.

This is the story of who Iela Mari was, and why her 1967 The Red Balloon (Il palloncino rosso) is so important to the history of graphic books. Along the way we look at small earthquakes in visual culture in the late 60s and early 70s, including the exhibit “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape” and Radical Design in Italy, countercultural design publishing in California, and the roots of John Berger's Ways of Seeing in the UK. This video also looks at the work of design legend Leo Lionni. A postscript to the story looks at the work of contemporary writer Michele Mari and what it tells us about this movement’s legacy and how the book lives on today.