Flowers In Hotel Rooms Volume V
2016
Sarah Bodman

Volume V in a series of books inspired by Richard Brautigan's novel, The Abortion: An Historical Romance 1966. Each book contains 10 images/performances/tributes for 10 books read whilst travelling.

Lots of travel for work can sound glamorous but in reality is mostly time spent in airports, stations and hotel rooms. These books have helped occupy my time by imagining what the characters in the books I read would be doing if they were here.

For Volume V, I read Gogol's Dead Souls, looking at a gilded mirror in a London hotel room thinking of Chichikov's purchases. In Melbourne, I read the Jerilderie Letter alongside Peter Carey's manuscripts for The True History of the Kelly Gang. In The Netherlands, working with Tom Sowden, for John Fante's Ask The Dust, I appropriate the palm tree remnants from an Ed Ruscha tribute video we made on the train. In Scotland I wept with laughter at an empty fridge thanks to David Sedaris's Barrel Fever, and after interviewing Dmitry Sayenko ate 'mashed peas' in Manchester for Daniil Kharms. I don't know where I'm going next, or what I'll be reading, but these days I look forward to any dull hotel or shabby motel - as I know anything could happen.

Medium: Concertina format. Archival inkjet print from original photographs on Woodstock Superfine paper, bound with six-sheet card and a variety of vintage wallpaper covers, screenprinted text on inside covers. 10pp.

Dimensions (HxWxD): 140 x 100 x 12 mm (extends to 88 cm when opened), 2016.

back