The River City

The River City: Eyewitness Document 2011, the book I made about the 2011 floods in Brisbane is currently on display in an exhibition in the Australian Library of Art Showcase at the State Library of Queensland.  The library have named the exhibition The River City after the title of my book because most of the artists featured in the exhibition have a connection to Brisbane.  The exhibition dates are 24 February to 27 August 2023.

The photos used in the book were put together from so many I took walking around Yeronga -the suburb where I live, and the neighbouring suburb Fairfield.

A state library blog post about the book can be found here.

 

A new home

 

The Libris Awards at Artspace Mackay have recently finished and I was delighted to learn that the Mackay Regional Council had decided to acquire my entry, The River City: Eyewitness Document for the collection at Artspace Mackay. 

 

I love it when my books don't return because they have found a new home!

Catching up with some news

Vitruvius pictured above is one of the Ten Books on Architecture currently on display in the exhibition The Collections on View at the Pratt Institute Library, Brooklyn Campus, New York during May to August. 

 

 

I am very pleased that a copy of The River City: Eyewitness Document, about the 2011 flood in  Brisbane and currently on display at the Libris Awards, has been purchased by the State Library of Queensland for their collection. 

 

 

One of my Book Art Object books That Unbearable Lightness has been selected for the Artists Book Award, Books...Beyond Words - Revolution to be held at the East Gippsland Art Gallery, Bairnsdale, Victoria from 10th August to 4th September.

 

 

2013 Libris Awards

 

The River City, Eyewitness Document has been selected for the Libris Awards at Artspace Mackay which will be opened on Saturday 11 May and continues until 30 June.

 

This book documents the 2011 flood in Brisbane.  I digitally manipulated photographs I had taken in the Yeronga/Fairfield area showing the river inundating houses and parkland, the thick residual mud, and the mud covered debris piled up on footpaths. The book is an overall expression of these heartbreaking images and of the horror experienced by the flood-affected residents.  

 

The long brown expanding structure of multiple concertinas sewn together, suggests the river itself and photographs of the mud and debris are contained within the structure, just as the real objects were submerged within the expanding river.  I am hoping that the book will be exhibited as I intended, as this sculptural display is part of the concept.

Cover to Cover

This book Rimbaud's Illuminations is one of three books that will be exhibited in 'Cover to Cover' held by the Moreton Bay Regional Council at the Bribie Island Seaside Museum from 4th October to 2nd December 2012.  The exhibition will be opened on October 6 at 11 am by Linda Douglas, who up until recently was the publisher and editor of the Australian Book Arts Journal.  Linda will also be giving a talk on artists books. 

The other two books on display are The Battle Within

and The River City

I've also had the good news that The River City (No 1) sold to a New York book collector and won't be coming home.

Revisiting 'The River City'

I've been working on a more traditional bookbinding version of The River City. 

I've been participating in The Australian Bookbinders Exhibitions since 2008 and my skills at producing a designer binding are slowly improving.

The first time I entered a book in 2007, I sent a very creative book which I thought I had bound extremely well, but it was rejected because it didn't have a 'proper' spine.

Since then I've managed to make the cut, and have been working hard on French Simplified bindings.  The binding I have used here is a Simplified binding with cover of Japanese paper and onlaid leather with a leather spine, leather headbands and onlaid leather title. 

I can't seem to get enthusiastic about rebinding a ready-made published book so every year I remake the content of one of my books into a binding suitable for this exhibition. 

I do enjoy trying to be more disciplined and skilled with making these traditionally bound books and trying to master the skills of working with leather.

The 2012 Australian Bookbinders Exhibition will be held in the Research Library of the Art Gallery of NSW from 31st October to 14th December 2012.

The River City goes to New York

Two books are just about to make their way to the Center for Book Arts in New York for the exhibition Book as Witness: The Artist's Response, to be held from 11th July to 22nd September. 

The River City is a book I made last year following the floods in Brisbane which affected the river suburb I live in.  I was one of the lucky ones who was an eyewitness but escaped being inundated.  Maria Pisano, the curator of the exhibition asked me if I could also send a copy of The Battle Within (which seems to be having a second life this year) and she asked Monica Oppen for her book Stabat Mater.  Maria had seen both these books in Monica's great catalogue The Silent Scream. Political and Social Comment in Books by Artists which is available not only in Australia but in the United States too.

PS 20th May : Thanks to news from Amanda, The Silent Scream by Monica Oppen and Peter Lyssiotis has won a gold medal for Independent Writing/Publishing in the 2012 Independent Publishers Book Awards open to authors and publishers worldwide who produce books in English for the North American market.