In de Beer’s expanded print practice, she explores and critically engages with archival materials to examine not only the act of archiving but also how archives shape personal narratives and address broader global concerns such as climate change, immigration, land, and the preservation of knowledge. Working with both photographic and written archival sources, de Beer uses these materials to construct new or alternative narratives, drawing on analogue and digital processes to question how histories are recorded, mediated, and re-imagined.
Through these material and visual investigations, her work challenges the hierarchies and systems embedded within archives, publishing, and library structures, particularly in relation to how knowledge is organized, accessed, and valued. She implements a wide range of printmaking techniques, including acid etchings, photoetching, and screen printing to create editioned prints. She applies those printmaking sensibilities to create sculptural forms in metal and paper, installations, and artist books. Books play a central role in de Beer’s practice. By interrogating their form, materiality, and function she creates traditional publications, zines, artist books, and large-scale immersive book-based sculptures. Across these varied formats she considers the book as both an object and a site where knowledge can be questioned and restructured.
