Library Interventions : Sharon Kivland
Bryan Eccleshall : Steam, Pencil, Paper, and Ink
I propose to travel, by train, to Leeds in order to visit the College of Art Library. On arrival, I will seek out Trueherz and Kennedy’s The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam (New Haven and London, 2008).1 This resource will provide the source material for the work to be undertaken on your behalf. I assume this will be available on the day I visit. If it is on loan, I will be forced to improvise in order to complete this task.
The research will be both literary and visual. An image of a steam train will be selected and reframed to focus on the steam, in line with your publication Resien I (York, 2010).2 The resulting cropped image will be drawn across a series of blank postcards. When assembled correctly, the postcards will create a single composite image, but due to the subject’s fractal nature (i.e. any part resembles the whole), each card stands as a complete image in its own right. Instructions on how to assemble the large image will be included on the postcards. All the material will be bought in Leeds and all the work will be completed in the library.
A précis of text from the book, pertinent to the image, will be handwritten on the reverse of the postcards, constituting the ‘knowledge report’ you require. The postcards will then be sent, from Leeds, to an address of your choosing on the same day.
Worksop, 27th January 2014
1. Published to accompany the exhibition Art in the Age of Steam : Europe, America and the Railway 1830–1960 at the Walker Gallery, Liverpool, 18 April to 10 August 2008, and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, 13 September 2008 to 18 January 2009.
2. Reisen I is the first is a series of occasional pamphlets, which refer to the trains, train journeys, railway-lines, stations, station platforms, railway timetables, and train compartments in the life and work of Sigmund Freud. (www.sharonkivland.com, accessed 27th January 2014)
