Mirror Tarot

A Machine For Constructing Stories: Portals Book

Where did tarot come from and where can it take us? Mirror Tarot begins from Italo Calvino’s conception of the tarot as ‘a machine for constructing stories’ to present each card as a small world and a generative mirror. The central essay traces the tarot across centuries of artistic, literary and intellectual history: from al-Andalus and the Neoplatonist Renaissance to psychoanalysis, manga and cosmology. Placing the cards alongside maps, emblems, cosmograms and works of art, it explores how images encode and transmit ways of imagining the world, becoming instruments for perception, possibility and the unknown.

A sequence of microfictions and creative writing prompts accompanies the Major Arcana of the artist’s deck. Emerging from Mirror – an ongoing collaboration by Sammy Lee and Sarah Shin spanning game, ritual and performance – Mirror Tarot is a tool for play, divination and worldmaking.