Many artists use landscape or nature as metaphorical carriers; the exhibition and accompanying small publication examined how these subjects are interpreted and utilised in a narrative format: through the use of image, text, structural and site–specific works in relation to the artist’s book. The books in the exhibition range from traditional landscape works to social, ecological and political works

The Arcadia exhibition launched at TRACE Gallery Dorset, in March 2005 (with a talk by Dr Stephen Bury, British Library), and then toured over the following 34 months to: UWE, Bristol; Centre for the Artist’s Book, Australia; Moufflon Bookshop, Nicosia, Cyprus; Eagle Gallery, London; Hartley Library, University of Southampton; AKI, Enschede, The Netherlands, Rikhardinkatu Library, Helsinki, Finland The Yard Gallery at Wollaton Hall; the John M Flaxman Library at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Ginkgo Reading Room at the John M. Olin Library, Washington University, USA; The Fleet Library at Rhode Island School of Design, USA Noosa Regional Gallery, Tewantin, Australia and The National Print Museum of Ireland.

Click here to view the archive of artists’ books…

Arcadia id est: talks and essays to download:
A one-day symposium on artists’ books and nature, was held at UWE in April 2005. This featured speakers from the exhibition and the field of book arts: Helen Douglas, Iain Biggs, David Ferry, Tracey Bush, Mick McGraw and Sarah Bodman.

To read the text of Sarah Bodman‘s talk, click here
To read the text of Helen Douglas‘ talk, click here
To read the text of Iain Biggs‘ talk, click here
To read the text of Tracey Bush‘s’ talk, click here

The exhibition consists of 119 books by artists. A small, folding publication (£2) accompanies the exhibition with essays by Patrick Eyres and Sarah Bodman (ISBN 0 9543810 5 X).

You can read these essays online by following the links below:

Sarah Bodman: In Pursuit of the Arcadian Dream
Patrick Eyres: On site-specificity and storytelling

The exhibition tour included special events such as exhibition tour and talk (by Laurie Whitehill Chong) at the Rhode Island School of Design, USA; student workshops (Arcadia and the Metropolitan Landscape, led by Jana Harper and Jane Wolff), and panel discussion at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and Washington University Libraries, USA; A Day in Arcadia at UWE, Bristol and a six-week programme of events for Arcadia’s visit to Noosa Regional Gallery, Queensland, Australia in September 2007, as part of Books 07, curated by Deirdre Brollo.

Many thanks to all the participating artists and venues. Books purchased for the show have gone into the artist’s book collection at UWE Bristol’s Bower Ashton Library. Works included from the CFPR collection have returned to it, and will be used for the continuing ABPP free loan programme.

The Arcadia website will remain online as part of our archived exhibitions.