You Were Optional: The Language of Erasure 

Being excluded from a place where you once belonged is devastating. It doesn’t arrive as a single event, but accumulates quietly, in small moments that are easy to dismiss from the outside.

Designed as a visual progression, this artist's book collects 45 phrases from professional situations to show how exclusion is built. The pages physically darken as you read—moving from welcoming phrases on light pink backgrounds to isolating words on solid black.

Whether you have experienced workplace exclusion yourself or want to understand how it is expressed in everyday institutional language, this book traces how seemingly innocent phrases form a pattern of erasure.

Available in print on Amazon and as a PDF ebook on Gumroad.