Homeward Bound getting out

I'm delighted to announce that at last I've had some time to get copies of Homeward Bound (the publication I made at the end of my fellowship at the British Library) out into the world to be seen by a few people. Homeward Bound now adorns the shelves of the lovely Tatty Devine, London (thank you my faithful scout, Ian, out and about taking photos for me, above), Magma, London, The Fruitmarket Gallery Bookshop, Edinburgh, and Jam, Falmouth. Hopefully a few more soon.

The Women's Institute, Falmouth

The best guests who come to stay with us every year, are the ones who make us scrub out our eyeballs of the fugg of familiarity and view the place that we live with a new awe.

Thank you Maja for sending these pictures to me and reminding me of a great holiday with friends just a few months ago. We spent a morning at a jumble sale in the WI, trying on antique dresses and taking photos of the intriguingly energy and security conscious hand-painted signage throughout the premises.

Thoughts on flat-pack figures and scale

© Lizzie Ridout

After writing about dummy boards in a previous post I've begun to notice how common the dummy board's descendant is in modern culture. It seemed like such an archaic notion, and yet not only do two-dimensional paper and wooden figures lure us into restaurants (see above, a dummy board outside a restaurant in Beijing earlier this year), but they've been employed to add a certain human element, a sense of scale or instructional purpose to objects or products that would otherwise remain mute and characterless. I love the sly grin and the coquettish stance of these two dummy boards in the National Museum of Gardening at Trevarno. (And no, they weren't placed anywhere near each other, despite looking as though they may be in flirtatious conversation.)

© Lizzie Ridout

© Lizzie Ridout

In Sweden at new year, the house we were staying in Nensjö was home to this little dummy board. She was created in 1931 (handwritten in ink on the reverse) and is probably about 15 cm high. Whether she was produced commercially or as a gift by a friend is unsure, but clearly she was made by backing a photograph with some sort of plywood. She's by far the most compelling snapshot I've seen, and all because she's been cut out and removed from her background, allowing her to really nestle into whichever landscape she's placed in. All of us staying at the house commented on her. We talked about devising our own series of figures for the entire group, even going so far as to pose everyone outside in the snow for the shots from which we could create each individual character.

© Lizzie Ridout

I'm still not entirely sure why I've become so fixated with these figures, but link it back to work that I created at the end of my fellowship at the British Library. The various photo montages are still pinned to my wall and there's a pile of junk shop snapshots that I've been gathering beneath them, which I intend to work on in a similar way. Only now I want to scale it up a little.

Couple II © Lizzie Ridout

Friends I © Lizzie Ridout

Couple I © Lizzie Ridout

Beijing, April 2007

Photos © Lizzie Ridout

I keep returning to these photos that I took in China earlier this year. Beijing's closest area of desert is about 18km away, and it's been estimated that the area's perpetual winds blow the sand nearer by about 2km a year. We were warned about dust clouds that hit Beijing in the spring time. Liking to dress appropriately for every occasion, I was bewildered as to what to pack clothes-wise for a potential sand storm. (Unfortunately?) we were never witness to one and my garment dilemma remained unanswered. However all across the city there are clues as to drought and an impending environmental disaster. Dried-up parks with brown dust lawns and padlocked water-taps. But these pictures seem to capture a certain invincible spirit: very convincing fake plastic hedges indeed.