According to Roy Wagner’s anthropological approach, the unspoken, the unheard, and the unknown are just as important as what is there. The absences, described by Wagner as “anti-twins,” are essential to the formation of culture and the study thereof. In this notebook, Mariana Castillo Deball creates a two-level communication with the re-printing of a text excerpted from Wagner’s writings. On one level, the conversation unfolds between Wagner and his anti-twin Coyote, who expresses what is absent while also countering Wagner’s statements. On the other, the artist’s filigree drawings—of fantasy figures and objects, closely related to Mexican folklore, and especially produced for this notebook—accompany and comment on Wagner’s text.

Mariana Castillo Deball (*1975) is an artist living in Berlin and Amsterdam.

Roy Wagner (*1938) is a professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Virginia.