Seat Assignment is the first book to capture the astonishing breath and complexity of artist Nina Katchadourian’s eleven-year long project by that name, in which she made art on every flight she took using only the materials she found around her, documenting the results with her phone’s camera. Using things like snacks, the in-flight magazine, sweater lint, her own fingers, her clothing, or even just the glare of the overhead reading light, Katchadourian creates artworks on her tray table, in her lap, and even in the airplane lavatory, where tissue paper seat covers and paper towels transform her into characters that recall 15^th-century Flemish portraits.

The hundreds of color photographs in this book, arranged chronologically, show her process of persistent experimentation and improvisation and reveal how a commitment to play and rigor in combination can produce unexpectedly beautiful and ingenious results.