POSTCARDS FROM NOWHERE
42 RUE MONTREUIL, PARIS 75011
REMEMBER YOU WERE MADE TO BE__________
A postcard is quite often the last [material] thing taken from seeing a body of work. In this instance, one may replace the word ‘work’ with ‘water’; a destination that can hold the same breath.
Sometimes it’s all that’s left. A momento, for some, to be pinned on the wall. For others, written correspondence, a singular line of love left between pages of an unfinished book. Often times not about the image itself but what the emptiness on the other side waits for. It’s perhaps not necessary to note the multitude of potential ways to use a postcard, other than that it is intended to be used.
REMEMBER presents POSTCARDS FROM NOWHERE a limited edition of 15 images, in postcard format.
Conceived from a longstanding reverence with images as object; the untraceable souvenir passed between hands, a photograph that carries dedicated space to hold the thoughts of another... the postcard is an archetypal symbol of this feeling that REMEMBER constantly returns to; from the inspiration of long lost messages in boxes at flea-markets, to now something of a 'final form' for this series of images.
The photographs are taken between 2020 - 2025, the first image arriving post-lockdown on the D-Day beaches of Normandy. "I had nothing but a black and white disposable camera with me. The type of point and shoot where you realise why it's called such a thing. Months later when the snapshots of this body of water + the strangers surrounding it were developed, they felt far from disposable. That's when the title of this project + the desire to turn the images into postcards was born. I kept some photocopies of the images on my studio wall for sometime, partly wanting to go back there; back to the edge of the land, back to the people I will never find again..."
What brings the images together was never a place, nor the people, but the feeling, that one can not chase or prescribe; but simply arrives in a state of being that strong kind of alone; the expansiveness of uncertainty. Over the years getting lost in other lands, one image at a time would slowly remain within this nothingness, that when held together quietly speaks of an internal landscape: something to remember. Five years on, by the same shoreline but some several hundred miles further down, a document of a hand made shelter would be taken, closing the series.
Taking care to recreate the energy of the project into all the physical aspects of the publication, the images are riso-graph printed, a method of reproduction that fades the details, recalling xerox photocopies, in a deep singular tone ink that can leave traces on one's hands.
Inserted between each print is a singular transluscent page containing written memories of the journey between the moments.
With an intention to give each edition something unique that can not be replicated, these 15 prints are then wrapped with fragile cuttings of PARIS MATCH magazines, collected by the artist over the last decade living in Paris, dating from circa 1938 - 1968, articles retracing the likes of man in space amongst firs steps in technology.
Cut from context in a Beat poet style, the 2cm become indecipherable graphic fragments, which are then sealed in place with silver wax, imprinted with the motif of an antiquated sunshine. The moment you break the seal the pages loose their place to a new meaning.
Limited to an edition of 50, each POSTCARD FROM NOWHERE set is presented within a grey silver foiled box, containing a hand engraved aluminium strip with its corresponding edition number.
To launch this project, REMEMBER invites you into a multi-layered installation, a voyage to nowhere, featuring hand-printed darkroom collages, site-specific large scale images, sculpture and video works.
Please join the artist on Friday 8th May at A-Side, 42 Rue Montreuil 75011, Paris, from 18h - 21h. The exhibition will remain open on Saturday 9th May from 10 - 18h.
POSTCARDS FROM NOWHERE will be available to purchase at the event, with any remaining copies available online at a later date.
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For further enquiries or to reserve your POSTCARDS FROM NOWHERE please contact rememberyouweremadetoebused@gmail.com
THESE IMAGES BELONG TO NOWHERE + NO ONE.
THE PLACES YOU GO
WITHOUT MEANING TO FIND.