University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
Tom Trusky Exhibition Cases
Special Collections Room, Bower Ashton Library
Future Fantasteek!
Jackie Batey
27 April 2011 - 14 June 2011
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Future Fantasteek! had been bubbling for some time before I thought of making it into a serial zine in 2006. I commute to work, about 3 hours per day - only 3 days per week though. I sit on the train and often draw or write to while away the journey. I soon noticed that my drawings were generally a visual rant about what had happened that day or week. Over the course of a year, I built up many images; some typographic; others drawn in the form of fake advertisements or patronising advice. When flicking through a batch of these sketchbooks it seemed like a fun idea to try and edit them into a serial zine.
Themes kept reappearing - broken machines, rude people, apathy and quick fixes, fake medical promises, fashion, celebrity endorsements, Xmas, commercialism, and on and on, and on...Strangely enough, drawing [down] everything that made me mad, made me smile more. So now I give the illusion of being happy person.
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I title each issue of the zine to reflect current topics, it’s strange now looking back over 5 years to see zines themed around: Carbon Footprints: Comfort & Security: Credit Crunch: Quantitative Easing: Fiddle Your Expenses: Deepwater Horizon and the latest, Issue Ten, Royal Wedding Souvenir. Is this really the world we all live in?
Introduction from Issue Ten: ‘The Royal Wedding Souvenir’
The Damp Research team have been trotting out this stuff for FIVE years now. At some point you might have thought someone would find something better to do?...but apparently not.? Well, the walls of money have stuck to rich people again and University is now soooo expensive only the Queen can afford to send her eldest son, don’t even bother sending girls - they just need to be pretty these days, start saving up for a boob job and sod the degree... (unless it’s in cosmetic surgery).
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This touring exhibition and catalogue celebrates the first ten issues of Future Fantasteek! spanning the last 5 years. The ‘train’ sketchbooks also form part of this exhibition that started at University of the Arts London, LCC, London in March 2011, and is now touring venues across the UK and USA until March 2012.
UK Locations
27 April 2011 - 14 June 2011 UWE, Bristol.
5 Sept 2011 - 28 Oct 2011 The Library, Hereford College of Arts, Hereford.
21 Nov 2011 - 13 Jan 2012 INVIA, Institute of International Visual Arts, London.
1 Feb 2012 - 1 March 2012 The Ministry of Books, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth.
USA Locations
1 April 2011 - 31 May 2011 Colorado College Special Collections, Colorado Springs, CO.
27 June 2011 - 7 Oct 2011 The Sallie Bingham Center, Duke University, Durham, NC.
30 Oct 2011 - 20 Nov 2011 Joan Flasch Collection, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL.
Jackie Batey
www.dampflat.com
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