The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. Photo by Walker Books.
Twenty years ago, artist Sam Winston discovered a room of unused words in the Oxford University Press (home of the Oxford English Dictionary). Penny Silva, Dictionary director at the time, gave Sam a tour, “she was showing me around when she took me into a small room full of index cards and declared… ‘this is the room where all the words that aren’t in The Dictionary are kept’.” Since that first spark of interest in 2004, Winston has gone on to create exhibitions and artworks inspired by this unseen words room and the creative potential of the dictionary.
This unique linguistic inspiration now forms the spine of a lyrical picture book created in collaboration with New York Times best-selling author-illustrator Oliver Jeffers. A call to kids and adults alike to create, to question, to explore, and to imagine, their magical project is intended to prompt young readers to ignite their love of language and discover where their words come from, and how we all have a story to tell.
The Dictionary Story by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston. Photo by Walker Books.
In 2007 words like almond, blackberry and crocus in the Oxford Junior Dictionary made way for block graph and celebrity. In 2012 the edition maintained those changes, and further removed catkin, cauliflower, chestnut and clover, and now instead features cut and paste, broadband and analogue. The authors noted a pattern in which the natural world and external play-based childhood inferences are being replaced with internal, digital and sedentary past-times.
Winstone reflects, “It’s a book that I wish I had as a kid. When I was young I didn’t understand words, my imagination was crazy and reading seemed like torture. This book is for that person. I hope it inspires a reluctant reader to pick up a book and smile. Because when someone realises how powerful the spell of words can be, a new world of opportunities opens up for them.”
Definitions
ghost /ɡəʊst/ Believed to be the spirit of someone who is no longer in this world. Ghosts can appear as shadows, strange shapes or just silly people with bedsheets over their heads. They sometimes scare people, which means it is hard for them to make friends. Fortunately, puddles don’t get scared; puddles make friends with everyone.
puddle /ˈpʌd.əl/ A small pool of water. Puddles are often made by rain and they love to look at the sky. They will make friends with anyone who takes the time to say hi to them. Puddles are the friendliest things in the universe.
apple /ˈæp.əl / A hard round fruit with green, red or yellow skin. Some apples can send princesses to sleep or give people all knowledge. Other apples fall to the ground to help explain complicated laws. (See gravity.) If we leave apples alone, they turn themselves into trees. (See amazing.)
artist /ˈɑː.tɪst/ A person who spends a lot of time with new ideas – drawing, writing or acting them out. Some of these ideas turn out to be funny, some sad and some beautiful. Lots of colour and a few surprises are often involved. (See art.)
dream /driːm/ A word for things people see while asleep. Dreams are the brain’s way of showing you that you’re a lot more imaginative than you think. In the day, we fill our heads with sensible things, but dreams prefer to create strange things, for instance, glow-in-the-dark marmalade and inflatable chicken’s teeth. We’ve been studying dreams for hundreds of years and we still don’t really know what they are. That said, Martin Luther King Jr had a really great one.
heart /hɑːt/The organ that pumps blood around an animal’s body. It’s also the part of the body that helps people recover from trying to think too much. (See headache.) Hearts help heads make good decisions. When things are going well, the heart feels full; not so well, it aches.
Sam Winston’s Dictionary Story project, inspired by and in response to dictionaries and the stories they can tell, 2001 – 2024. Image courtesy of Sam Winston.
Book tour dates Saturday 17th August: London, Sunday 18th August: Edinburgh International Book Festival, Monday 19th August: Glasgow, Tuesday 20th August: Manchester, UK
Recently released was a hardcover published by Here Press Publishing entitled The Town of Tomorrow – 50 Years of Thamesmead, in tribute to one of London’s iconic towns.
“Rising from London’s Erith marshes in the 1960’s, Thamesmeand was LondonCounty Council’s bold attempt to build a new town to address the city’s housing shortage after World War ll. It’s ben noted for it’s daring, experimental design, concrete modern terraces, blocks of flats and elevated walkways built around a system of lakes and canals. Today Thamsmead is home to more the 40,000 people but throughout the years, economic, political and social pressure have left their mark. In the 198’s, as opinion turned against the modernist converts architecture, the focus shifted to more conventional red brick homes. Since the 1990s, as some of the original buildings began to fall into disrepair, Thamesmead has relied increasingly on private investment for new developments in what had previously been a mainly council run town.
In ‘The Town of Tomorrow,’ history has already been assembled and preserved. The architecture and it’s inhabitants have been captured by archive material. Combined with newly commissioned photography by Tara Darby. Original plans, models , postcards, leaflets and newspaper clippings are presented alongside interviews with local residents. Together with an introductory essay by John Grindrod, the images covey the story of an influential and often misunderstood town, from the dreams and excitement of its ambitious original vision to the complex realities of living there today.”
iO Tillett Wright has many strings to his bow; the activist, speaker, writer, photographer, host and now author has proven himself to be a creative that not only pushes the boundaries, but well and truly breaks them – rejecting gender norms, and speaking out about it.
Brought up in the vibrancy of eighties downtown New York, Wright was at the intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art. His life also featured his creative showgirl, and all round “erratic glamazon” of a mother, Rhonna. It is no surprise then, that Wright’s debut book, Darling Days, A Memoir, is a culmination of the rebellion and love that he was exposed to and felt from an early age. At the heart of the book, it reveals the relationship between this formidable mother and a tearaway kid, sharing the bond they have which was defined by freedom and control, excess and sacrifice.
Recently released with Harper Collins, this debut book has predictably received critical acclaim. Buy your copy harpercollins.com
To welcome 2016, Taschen books are launching a sale that will run from the 28th to the 31st of January. Taschen’s South London store – situated in Duke of York Square – will offer discounts of between 50-75% on displayed and slightly damaged titles, which will also be extended to their website www.taschen.com.
Originally known as Taschen Comics, the publishing house was established in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen to publish his extensive comic book collection. It has since become a force in making lesser-known art available to mainstream bookstores and in bringing subversive art into broader public view. Taschen has always embraced potentially controversial material alongside books that focus on subjects like art photography, comics, painting, fashion, film and architecture. Their reputation of producing more daring titles on fetishistic imagery, queer art, historical erotica and pornography has set them apart from traditional competitors, making Taschen the first stop for lovers of print, art, anthropology… and aphrodisia.
In its 35-year history, Taschen has garnered a global following and made headlines several times. It has produced the world’s most popular art book series, the introductory Basic Art Series, and has broken records with Helmut Newton’s SUMO – the most expensive book published in the 20th Century. Last year, Taschen introduced Art and Collectors Editions with models Gisele Bündchen and Naomi Campbell, photographer Bettina Rheims and music icon David Bowie. Join Taschen on the 28th of January as they celebrate many new, bold ventures for 2016, and indulge your artistic, or erotic, needs.
This month sees the publication of two new books on the work of German artist Werner Büttner – the first entitled Coincidence In Splendour takes a look at his paintings, and the second My Looting Eye his collages. Why is that a big deal? Well, considering that these are the first books on Büttner’s practice to ever be published in English, it means his work is about to become accessible to an entirely new audience. See? Exciting.
For those unfamiliar with Büttner’s oeuvre, here’s a little background. Whilst predominantly known as a painter, he started a series of collages in the early naughties to confidently and pointedly address the nature of composition and subject matter in art practice. By enabling viewers to reconsider artistic conventions and norms, Werner Büttner also addresses social conformity and the ideology of rebellion (interestingly, Büttner originally trained as a lawyer).
Büttner decontextualizes everyday objects to explore the power of meaning in a visually-stimulating and dynamic way. Explaining his seemingly unpredictable, idiosyncratic style he comments: “the artist is a sieve, sifting his environment. Information nuggets of precisely the required size get stuck in the sieve. Now he can work.” My Looting Eye explores the ‘method that lies behind the madness’.
Werner Büttner’s My Looting Eye and Coincidence in Splendor launch on 28th January, 6-8pm at Marlborough Contemporary London. Published by Black Dog Publishing.
Main image: Werner Büttner, Abandoned, 2008, Courtesy the artist and Marlborough Contemporary, London
Navigating the minefield of the creative industry at a time when housing costs have reach crisis point, funding for the arts is being monumentally slashed, and any kind of government support is a joke – is nigh on impossible. Luckily, there’s a force for active change in our midst. It comes in the shape of 26-year-old artist, feminist and curator Sophie Giblin, who is a founder of the award-winning Kollektiv art community, and determined to satiate the need for real, practical ‘how to’ knowledge for creatives just starting out. Sophie has put together, along with designer Sarah Todd and developer Luke Phillips, a free online manual that cleverly, and plainly, details how to do various things such as run collaborative projects, use alternative funding methods like crowdfunding and open galleries in derelict spaces.
“Life as a creative can be tough. Funding is being cut, rent is high, inspiring opportunities are scarce. It all seems really miserable, but we can and must stay creative. The new youth led DIY collectives shouldn’t be deterred by the difficulties. They deserve a helping hand and that’s why we’ve made everything we’ve learnt over the past two years completely open source. We like to choose collaboration over competition.” – Sophie Giblin
Everything you could want to know – from how to handle a problematic landlord to prepping a space for an exhibition – is beautifully categorised and easy to navigate, via the website’s no fuss (but still aesthetically pleasing) scrolling design.
Readers and fellow creatives are also encouraged to engage with the project by tweeting any thoughts and additional questions with the hashtag #KollektivSchool – further ensuing there is no dead end to the invaluable information being provided.
Kollectiv has been running as a Kickstarter funded organisation for over two years now, and its overall message is this: “make ideas into realities, don’t settle for unfair treatment and learn by taking the lead. Make your own way and regret nothing. Show the #haters what you’re made of and don’t let the realities of post education stifle your creativity.” We’re down with that.
What do you know about queer history? It’s not exactly on the school syllabus, which means we tend to be woefully uninformed.
That’s what Never Apart hopes to rectify with its LGBT Historic Colouring book, Colour by Icons, which celebrates some of queer history’s most colourful trailblazers: legends and heroic symbols of queer struggles, talents, and achievements.
The book costs $20, with 50% going to Rainbow Railroad and 50% to going directly into funding youth-focused programming at Never Apart. There are 25 iconic images found inside and bound in the 1980’s Colouring Book style.
It will be accompanied by an art exhibition at the Never Apart Gallery – its first – which will showcase works from a number of artists who took on the task of colouring a page in in the book. These will be auctioned off in aid of the same cause later in the year, and you will also be able to buy 3 different “Colour by Icons” t-shirts.
Never Apart is a non-profit organization in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, determined to bring about social change and spiritual awareness through programming with global reach and impact.
Never Apart seeks to educate on equality, the environment, and conscious living, while celebrating both established and emerging artists. The platform is geared towards igniting change through gatherings, music, art exhibitions, panel discussions, workshops, and special events.
Anna-Marie Fitzgerald and Phoebe Frangoul are the co-editors and co-founders of the London grrrl-zine and literary salon Pamflet. Here they discuss the releases, trends and going’s on in the literary world worth knowing about. Follow them on Twitter and Instagram @Pamflet.
We can never get enough of angry young women at Pamflet, so happily we have two righteous books to recommend this month. They also happen to be about the politics behind our two major obsessions (music and clothes) too.
Words Will Break Cement: The Passion of Pussy Riot(Granta Books)by Moscow-based journalist Masha Gessen (brought forward from its March publication date because of Nadya Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina ‘early’ release) is the story of Russia’s most famous ex-political prisoners. In the past couple of years their iconic balaclava-ed images have inspired rebel-artists across the world, adorned greeting cards and been referenced by the masked cast in the poster for last year’s all-women Julius Caesar at the Donmar.
Gessen investigates the young women behind the cultural phenomenon, spending time with Nadya’s husband and father and corresponding with them incarcerated women in their respective prisons. If you saw the Punk Prayer film and got the Let’s Start a Pussy Riot art-book (which featured contributions from Meadham Kirchhoff and Yoko Ono amongst many others), then you really need to read this in-depth look at what it means be young, fearless and angry in the new Russia.
Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion (Pluto Press) by writer and activist Tansy E. Hoskins and wonderfully illustrated by Jade Pilgrom will be launched on London Fashion Week Eve (next Thursday 13 February). Hoskins manages to convincingly bring the two Karls (Marx and Lagerfeld) into this passionate and radical critique of the fashion industry. Writing from the perspective of an outsider who believes it ‘truly is glorious and enthralling as well as exasperating and terrible,’ her stance will be familiar to anyone who’s been tempted by the quick fix rush of a high street bargain only to sink into shameful remorse immediately afterwards. In Stitched Up Hoskins might be dazzled by fashion, but that doesn’t stop her from asking critical questions around the provenance and manufacture of clothing and the exploitation of fashion workers from the factory floor to the catwalk. Luckily she has plenty of answers to suggest too, and in this theoretical, but enjoyably journalistic text, she confidently picks up the campaigning baton from her fash-critic foremothers such as Elizabeth Wilson and looks optimistically towards the future.
ALSO OUT THIS MONTH: Costume historian Amber Jane Butchart’s Fashion Miscellanyis a darling collection of short essays and asides on style, tailoring and taste. On and off the page Amber lives her craft and here she always wears her expert knowledge lightly, packing this neat volume full of treasures. Reading it is like digging through a junk shop jewellery box: lots of fun.
TASCHEN’s London store will play host to their annual winter SUPER SALE from January 23rd-26th. The four day extravaganza will give you a chance to get your hands on 75% off slightly flawed issues or retired display copies of elegant art volumes, inspiring architecture books, slender design classics and photographic tomes. With limited stock at bargain prices, it’s not one to miss and getting in there early is highly recomended.
TASCHEN’s London store is located at 12 Duke of York Square SW3 4LY. Sale opening hours are 10am-8pm on Thursday-Saturday and 12-6pm on Sunday.
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