For the past decade, Strachan has been building an A-to-Z compendium of some 17,000 entries chronicling stories of the under-recognized and little-known–people, places, events, objects, concepts, and phenomena–based on the layout and logic of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, traditionally regarded as a primary source of world literacy in the pre-Internet age.
The copiously researched entries pay tribute to those who or which have been overlooked or lost in some way. Using the rubric of received knowledge to make networks and structures of power more visible, Strachan’s Encyclopedia of Invisibility questions the conditions by which some are legitimized and others obscured, calling for a reframing of canonized bodies of histories.
The Encyclopedia of Invisibility is a wellspring of untold stories which variously come to life in Strachan’s paintings, sculptures, and installations which too play a role in excavating hidden histories to bring to light unknown ground-breaking epics and human achievements, honoring numerous accomplished individuals–living and historic–who have been marginalized or forgotten.