Into The Stretching Target Again

In 2005 (my last year as part of tomato) I made a book, my second after Tycho’s Nova (2001). Inspired by the Ladybird books of my childhood, Scandinavian folklore, horror movies and concrete poetry, I wrote a simple little fairy story. I took colour photography of landscapes around my then mother- and father-in-laws house in Smaland, Sweden, on midsummer’s day until sunset. Later that summer, I took a trip to Gotland and visited Narsholmen, the location where Tarkovsky’s last film, The Sacrifice, was shot. I took black and white pictures here. All the images were shot on a Lomo camera. While I was on the Gotland trip I kept a notebook, describing landscapes and people and atmospheres. I then counted every seventh word of the text and used this approach to make a concrete poem, which I joined with the fairy tale, interweaving it to replace the story as the book unfolds.

And then, at some point over the next couple of years, I lost it all. I have no idea how. I forgot about it.

In 2017, I found the final PDF (I couldn’t find any of the original artwork).

BOOK information

Fast Back bound on Offenbach Bible Paper, Swiss cover
240 pages
210 x 280mm 

ISBN
9781915528032

Price
£45.00

Publication and production dates
Published in 5th May 2023

This edition was developed by Gavin Ambrose with Studio 245 working with Graham Wood and is licensed through Unseen Sketchbooks. This is part of an ongoing project to publish books through Studio 245 that form a wider research project focussed on graphic design history.

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