We’ve been making artists’ books together since 2002, via a long route through painting, writing, drawing, bookbinding, printmaking, installation and photography. The book is an ideal format, enabling us to combine skills and ways of working. ‘Taking A Journey’ celebrates twenty one years of production with selected books, objects and supporting information, to reflect themes, ideas, construction and making. What an adventure it has been.

Location often underpins our practice. Exploring cities, urban landscapes and wild places, rummaging in junk shops and museums, searching shorelines and following river routes have resulted in a reflex action to collect objects and information, gather ideas, make images and take notes. These raw materials form the content, narrative and structure of our work.

Collaboration, through mutual support and dissent, has been key in a working process that questions and explores; pushing, pulling and refining until content, structure and binding are fully resolved. Each book reveals and encloses its stories through words, images, found objects, collage, drawing or print. Our books require a substantial amount of time. Some have taken years from starting point to finished piece. This is a choice we have made: to produce limited edition, unique and artefact books and, where necessary, haul ourselves over the coals.

Books in the exhibition include:

River Thinking: Confluence, 2002
Hardback concertina book with water, soil and posters taken from the confluence of two rivers in Sheffield. The Sheaf emerges, joining the Don, on its way to the Humber and the sea.

Klara and the Angel, 2004
Hardback concertina book with short story, photographs and scanned objects. Picture this: the newness and boldness of snow. Here comes Klara at last!

Meniscus, 2006
Hardback concertina book with poem, colour inserts and DVD of the Solent.
You dare to step into the sea, immersed in the ebb and flow.

Fold, 2008
Hardback book with discarded Sheffield scissor blades, rock from the coast of Dumfries and a maze book containing images of whale skin and human skin on rock. Scissors burn, rock holds fast, paper unfolds.

Ithaca, 2015
Hardback, textless book, with Japanese, Fabriano and architectural tracing paper and hand-cut lines. An offering to inner and outer journeys. On reaching the island, you decide whereabouts to leave your book.

Looking For Mr Orwell’s Chimneys, 2018
Hardback book, brass post binding containing images and text produced during two journeys through Sheffield’s post-industrial region, following in the footsteps of ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’. At night the horizon was red below the darkness, glowing softly above the faraway city.

Ravine, 2022
Leather-bound, hardback book with images, text and hand-drawn map. A year of walking up and down The Ravine, through woodland on the edge of a local park, while the world closed in upon itself. Your shape is inclined to shift, softly skirting the steeply sloped ravine.

Fergus and the Fin Whale, 2023
Hardback, leather bound book with sliced whale bone insert, brass hinges, short story, pencil drawings and photographs. The whale was visible from the mainland and, at a distance, appeared to be resting upon the boulders. Made for the exhibition (which began at Winchester School of Art in November 2023).

SALT+SHAW artists’ books have been exhibited in the UK and internationally and can be found in collections including: Winchester School of Art, University of the West of England, The British Library, Tate Britain Library, V&A Museum, The Wellcome Trust, Manchester Metropolitan University, Glasgow School of Art, York University, London College of Communication, Books On Books and Neil Crawford.

Further information, visit SALT AND SHAW. An article: ‘SALT+SHAW On Location’ in The Blue Notebook, Autumn – Winter edition, 2023 can be found here.

We would like to thank Catherine Polley and Fiona Nichols (University of Southampton) for their support in making the initial exhibition happen and Sarah Bodman for picking up the baton and running with version two.

This exhibition is open to the public Monday – Friday 9am-5pm. No booking needed. The library is on the first floor of B block.

For more information on Bower Ashton Library, visitor access and campus map, see the library website. You can also follow the library’s Twitter feed.

UWE Bristol, City Campus at Bower Ashton, Kennel Lodge Road, Bristol BS3 2JT.