Place, Identity, Memory and the Artists Book.

Place, Identity and Memory is an International exhibition of books made by artists.  It opens on the 22^nd of May at the Gracefield Arts Centre, Dumfries, Scotland, until the 27^th of June when it will go on tour until October.

This exhibition runs in collaboration with the Dumfries Art Festival.

I am honoured that my book ‘Your Family’ will be on show throughout the exhibition and festival.

Your Family places found photographs alongside my contemporary images so that they can hold conversations.  They become an invitation into the narrative and into ones own memories, identity and thus give us a sense of place.

It shows how we have grown, how different we are, how our lives have changed and poses questions about how the people within the pages have contributed to that change.

The photograph is an integral part of our society and ourselves, giving us a complex and moving substance to our existence.  It offers many philosophical ideas that underline aspects of our society and our personal lives that no other medium has been able to undertake.  Your Family looks at the essential bearing we all play on each other’s lives and my fascination with humanity and the photograph.

Picking up a book, and then opening its pages is like in turn opening a door, a portal into a world.  It gives the viewer everything like a blooming flower, and it gives time to turn the pages at ones own pace and in which sequence one desires.  It often is a chance to be more personal than rooms and walls allow, for the rooms become contained within the fingers and palms of your hands.

For me it’s a privilege and exciting prospect to be shown alongside such Artists as Erica Van Horn and David Rhys Jones, among others and wishing everyone a fruitful and successful show.