School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol: Tom Sowden Exploring the Non-place: artists’ books and digital media 19th July – 31st August My current body of work has been evolving over the past eighteen months. The work produced during this time concerns ‘places’ that explore and draw inspiration from the experience of a passenger within ‘non-place’. Non-place, a term taken from Marc Augé, refers to environments such as air, motorway and rail routes, mobile cabins, the airport, the railway station, the supermarket, hotel chains, leisure parks and large retail outlets. I have concentrated on two ‘non-places’ in particular, those that have had the greatest impact upon my life during this time: the motorway and the supermarket. I wanted to treat the journey in these spaces as the destination, to observe the users, the people and the surroundings. I wanted to try and make sense of this space and others like it. I also wanted to see if it was possible to create place from non-place through documentation and commentary.  
 Whilst commuting on the motorway, I rigorously record and photograph all the coach seats that I occupy. These seats are then isolated from their surroundings and become devoid of human presence. As I am trying to highlight the shared history that we often have within non-place, I feel that the connection becomes more apparent with the lack of human presence. There is no figure to focus upon but we know or assume that the space has been occupied many times by a society linked through the act of travelling in this same location. In our attempts to relate to unknown others, we contemplate this space and therefore turn it into a ‘place’.  
 The other regular brush with the non-place is the weekly shop at the local supermarkets. Looking for the connection with others who use the shop, I was drawn to the shopping trolley (the contents of a trolley can say a lot about a person). As with the coach seats, I wanted to remove the trolley from its surroundings. Taking the empty trolleys out of the context of the supermarket and into isolation again highlights the shared history. The trolleys also metamorphosise into their own characters: the shy, the bold, the sporty, or the lazy. By retaining the view through the trolley itself, the viewer also sees a glimpse of the grey, drab car park. The space that holds these mobile baskets in an empty state is waiting for another customer to fill them with their wants and needs.   The power lies in the basket; this is the space that contains the embodiment of its user. The view through is disrupted only when the shopping is contained within. Through no fault of their own, these trolleys can be rendered impotent. When removed from the usual environment of the supermarket and its swathes of car park, they take on an altogether different character. Outside of non-place they appear lost, lonely and helpless. They have no function and can only await their collection or destruction. The power of embodiment has vanished. In the video pieces, I recorded the act of shopping by placing a camera in the basket of the trolley. The generic supermarket is then observed in a smooth motion from the lower level of the trolley. In some cases, the supermarket becomes smothered by my family’s personality as the produce piles up to obscure the camera’s view. In others, we continually chance upon the other inhabitants of this space, many repeatedly, as we journey through at the same speed, observing them not so much personally but through the contents of their trolley.   
This series of work does not intend to transform non-place but to create place through the work itself. The format in which the non-place is presented here, becomes the place – through the book, the print or the video. These ‘places’ require an engagement with and emotional response from the viewer, asking them to contemplate and become aware of their own presence within non-place. has recently completed his MA in Book Arts at Camberwell College of Arts. This exhibition includes a selection of works from his MA degree show. |
| Exhibition in the Artists' Books
Study Area at the Library School of Art, Media and Design, UWE Bristol: Benedict Phillips 7th June - 18th July 2004 Benedict Phillips is often described as one of the most diverse artists working in the U.K. today. He has a career which has seen him working as artist, writer and curator for over ten years. This was clearly demonstrated when he was made The Millennium Project poet for York by the poetry society and artist in residence for the internationally known photography gallery Impressions in 2001. Benedict often makes books to explain, represent and document his art actions - the books are often part of his multi-levelled, multimedia art appearances. His last specific book work Epide-mic was designed for The Law, a performance art festival organised by Hull time based arts in June 2003.   I am an Artist and Writer, based in Yorkshire. Much of my work is site specific and conceptual. Recently I have started a public art project for THE ART OF WELL-BEING in Bristol. It is intended that part of the outcome will be a permanent public art piece, to be developed through a research program including performance, and art actions involving the communities within the project area. I have just created a gallery based installation utilising the collections of Bradford City Council for the centenary show of Cartwright Hall Art Gallery, 22nd May to 19th September 2004. 
I use: photography, performance, installation, video projection, text, glass, stone and have made web-based work. Much of my work is about investigating, researching and reacting to the places in which I find myself; then inserting artworks back into the public spaces which influenced and informed their production. Depending on the geography of the projects, my responses in their many guises have been floated, buried, placed, hung and flown. For more than 10 years it has been part of my art practice to produce book works and limited edition artworks. Many of these have been made under the name of Field Study an organisation creating mail art, book works, and themed group shows – working internationally, co-founded by myself and David Dellafiora. The 9th September 2003 was the 10th anniversary of Field Study and well over 200 artists worldwide (including Japan, Russia and the USA) have made work in its name in the last decade! My art and disleckseya: All of my work is touched in some way by my dislecksya, this becomes clear and clear the deeper my understanding of my work and disleckseya become. Most of the time it is just stuff I do, so I don’t know it is infloowenst by my disleckseya. After all if you could never remember the names of streets you look at the map and just remember the shape of the journey and then go their. If ever word you rite is sculpted letter by letter sound by sound their is virtually no deferens in the challenge of riting left to right or right to left. Their is never a word I cannot spell, becoz the standerd system duz not fit well in my hed I have billet my owen. And this onez roolz are that putting a word down on paper I can reed later on, is the priority. So if it soundz lik z, then Y yooz an s? recalling roolz that sit badly with my logic just confuz me, and many other people. With the help of my dislecksick translashion dicshionery the Benedictionary you “the leksick” hoo find them selves exscloodid, and left out of the dislecksick werld can now be dislecksick to. Now with the help of the computer and werld wide web you to can be Dislecksick just go to The Benedictionary @ www.thebenedict.net and place some lexsick text, and press Benedikshonise. |
COEX Pacific Hall, Seoul.
4th – 9th June 2004
Congratulations to Na Rae Kim, who organised the 1st Seoul International Book Arts Fair in Korea. The fair took place from 4th – 9th June at COEX Pacific Hall, Seoul. Book artist Na Rae Kim: the director of Bookpress as well as an author on book arts, organised the fair and produced an accompanying publication for the event. Forty-two groups, including artists from over 11 countries in Europe, America and Asia participated in the fair. The success of the fair has resulted in the potential for this to become not only an annual event in Korea, it has also shown the possibilities for fairs in northeastern Asia, China, Japan, and Taiwan.
The book produced as a catalogue for the fair is packed with information and images on book arts and will be a valuable resource for those who study and practice book arts. A full report on the book fair by Guy Begbie, will be published in the 2005 issue of the Artist’s Book Yearbook next summer.
In the meantime, any enquiries for next year’s event or, to purchase a copy of the catalogue, contact:
Na Rae Kim at bookarts@hanmail.net
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