It Happened Here (2016), Handbound Book with Slipcase.
It Happened Here collates 22 hand-drafted memory maps that, collectively, schematise the accretion into memory the experience of dozens of visits to explore and make work in the Hogsmill Valley from September 2015 to July 2016.
The maps were drawn in one sitting. If it was felt that a draft no longer represented well enough either the terrain in which I worked, or the experience of working there, it would be set aside and a new draft started immediately. The process was repeated over and again, an obsessive, sometimes painful and repetitious method that was wholly reflective of the way in which I worked on the "Hogsmill Valley (1977)" pictures.
This method of drafting created a heightened sense of concentration, allowing me to explore more deeply the faculty of memory and, like Benjamin's "man digging" I relished every spadeful revealed, and turned over, in my mind. As the final few maps emerged, it was clear I was also utilising a schematic's capacity for selective omission, error and version to hone a specific sense of the creative and autobiographical narrative, the place, and the process.
Each map was torn from the sketchbook, scanned, printed on matt photo paper and handbound, with a matching slipcase, by Hannah Moore at the Highdown Bindery.