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Book reviews on Amazon are written
under the name Bookcase
2009 August publication - Discovering
Words, Shire Books: a book of word histories. Also for 2010 Discovering Words in the Kitchen, Shire Books,
a book of histories of words to do with food, cooking and eating.
2007 Essays for Catalogue for
Words and Forgetting, on linguistic encounters in the late eighteenth century along the north-west coast of America, and early
European encounters with the potlatch ceremony.
2006 “Do Bees Like Van Gogh?” (with Lars Chittka), Optics and Laser Technology Vol 38/4-6
2004 Guide to the Treasures Gallery, The British Library, London
2003 A New Map, The British Library, London
"Acquisitions at the British Museum" in Consuming Ancient Egypt, Cavendish
Press
2001 Paper at Hastings Rarities Symposium, Hastings Museum
1999 "An Outpouring of Material Objects", Kontura magazine, Zagreb
1998 "Grave-goods and Teddy Bear Thieves", Inventory
1998 "Report on the International Occasional Museum of Collecting", Carry On Collecting, Leicester University Press
1997 "Acquisition, Envy and the Museum Visitor", Experiencing Material Culture in the Western World, Ed. Susan Pearce,
Leicester University Press
1996 "The Real Thing", Museological Review
1995 "Artists in Museums", Paper at Museums Association Conference, Leicester University
1991 "Pictures for Eating", Art and Education
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The Art of Dissent
Following LOCOG's appropriation of a series of words for sponsors'
use only during the 2012 Olympics, I wrote an essay on the ethics and management of this, for the publication The Art of
Dissent.
A note about altering I’m very aware that the works that use historical or formerly
living objects give rise to difficult questions, so this may address them, in part. Working on site-specific projects such as Touch (2000) at Wolverhampton, and Mr
& Mrs Walker have moved (1998) at Kettle’s Yard, depended on a full engagement with the site/object in
order to make work that would say something meaningful and stimulating. That engagement, the digging into the nature
of the subject, necessarily affects the place, and changes it for the artist and the viewer. For me, the process
of living at Kettle’s Yard removed some of the delight, spoiled the idyll if you like. Touching the surface
of the painting in Touch brought to the forefront the “thing” of the painting, as it was meant
to, disrupting the illusion of three-dimensionality. But these
interventions can be undone, forgotten, ignored. They do not leave a lasting mark that removes and replaces part
of the object. The altered samplers, the engraved, burned, pinned or written-on natural or historical objects do,
and the alteration is both the content and the medium of the artwork. These works are made with a considerable
amount of thought beforehand. One should not undertake lightly the process of carving text onto a 70 million year
old fossil; perhaps one should not lightly undertake this on any form of stone, or any other non-regenerating surface. In
the introduction to the Samplers works, and the interview with Lucy Chapman I discussed how acts of creative destruction have
been established within the history of western art over the past 100 years, and arguably outside “high art” for
millennia before that, in the use of fossils for decoration, the idea of the palimpsest, and the recycling of building materials. As an artist I irrevocably change the world with every mark I make, just as I do as a human being every time I switch
on a light, or flush my toilet, or buy a chicken sandwich. My being able to carve text onto a commercially mined
fossil, or write on a shop-bought quail’s egg, or alter the text on an auctioned sampler, tells us something about how
we have conspired to parcel the world up into commodities of varying status. But more importantly for me it allows
me to raise and discuss questions about what we project onto these objects; this alone for me provides justification for the
work.
"The Language of Encroachment" in Nature & Nation,
St Martins/Arts Council, 2003
This essay in the catalogue of the Arts Council Touring Exhibition, Nature & Nation, considers the use
of language surrounding the migrations of species across borders. It looks at the definitions of words such as invasion, introduction,
and indigenous, in a variety of contexts, and examines how language is used to demonise such species as Japanese knotweed,
Chinese mitten crabs, Canadian pondweed and black woodpeckers. Using various case-studies from the national press and scientific
journals, the essay proposes that the natural environment is used as a allegory in which we talk to ourselves about race,
nationality and resources.
"Acquisitions at the British Museum" in Consuming Ancient Egypt, Cavendish Press, 2003
This essay discusses the project Acquisitions at the British Museum (1998) in the light of the British Museum-going
public's fascination with Ancient Egypt. It considers the semiotics of souvenir-photography within the museum, and the purchase
of reproduction-souvenirs within the space of the museum. In particular it discusses the nature of the overlapping image and
the desire for identity-merging with reference to the Freudian fort-da phenomenon.
"Grave-goods and Teddy Bear Thieves", Inventory, 1998
This essay examines the phenomenon of obsessive flower-laying and the leaving of other objects after the
death of Diana, Princess of Wales in 1997. Examining the nature of flowers at funerals, and the relationship between childhood
and death, the essay goes on to interpret the desire to throw flowers onto the hearse in the light of previously examined
notions of relics and touching.
"Acquisition, Envy and the Museum Visitor", Experiencing Material Culture in the Western World, Ed.
Susan Pearce, Leicester University Press, 1997
This essay discusses the relationship between collectors, visitors, curators and collections, and how it
is affected by the presentation of preserved objects in television programmes and the popular press. It proposes that projects
like the People's Shows mark a shift away from reverence towards competition.
"The Real Thing", Museological Review, 1996
This essay examines the project Four Defining Absences (Museum of Mankind, 1995) in which four objects from
the museum's collection are defined in their absence by their histories and the objects and spaces which have surrounded them
since collection. It goes on to discuss the nature of realness with reference to the fabrication of relics within the early
Christian Church, particularly considering the hierarchy of senses which places touch above sight as satisfying the desire
for contact.
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