Only the Bones
Valerie Yong Ock Kim

“I learned to stand my ground against the grief. I learned to not look away, instead to hold it, watch it, and to keep breathing. It shifts, it shares its other side. It transforms to the place where love lives; and courage.” _ Valerie Yong Ock Kim

“Only the Bones” is a record of the fourteen years the artist spent caring for her husband, who lived with Alzheimer’s disease. The book begins with a poem dedicated to their story by photographer Duane Michals and unfolds through diaries and poems that bear witness, with the whole body, to what it means to love someone and to lose them. It also includes photographs made by the artist at the sea, a place that offered her solace throughout this journey. Quietly and without sentimentality, the book reflects on what remains as we lose someone we love, and on the things that become visible only when we choose not to turn away from grief, but to remain within it. Published ten years after the artist's husband passed away, Only the Bones offers empathy and solace to those who endure, or have endured, the experience of holding onto pain and loss and sharing that experience with others.

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Limited Edition, 300 copies
2026
18 × 24 cm
126 pages
Printed Hardcover / Swiss binding
ISBN 978-89-97605-78-1


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