New Design (Ouq "uild)

° Installation °

¬ 2022 ¬

A series of light-responsive collage-poems suspended in a floating tapestry of pages. 

Poetic disturbance to the enviable serenity of a Scandinavian furniture catalogue.

It began with the acquisition of a huge, malfunctioning electric typewriter which scrambles every key to produce a different letter. I interpreted the machine’s strange layout, and began writing hesitant, fragmented lines of text directly onto found media. Working on pages from the gorgeous Bolia New Collection catalogue, the poems pondered perfection, longing, and the quiet grief of unattainable cohesion. It was a shambolic meditation on what slips through the frame.

Held to the light, each page reveals faint impressions and words from the reverse. Sofas wash up on shorelines, a tree bursts through the window. Each viewing different as the light shifts.

Afterwards, the pieces were folded up and sold in a vending machine for 50p.

They’re out there somewhere.

Photo: Thomas Mayer