Dust from Distant Mountain is an artist’s book of text and image, in the form of a boxed concertina over twelve metres long. It is the third artist’s book in a small series about the Covid-19 pandemic.

Dust from Distant Mountain was written in London, where there are no mountains, as winter turned to spring in 2022. The book that preceded it was written during the transition from autumn to winter in 2021, and explored the political and socioeconomic problems developing in the UK at that time. The first book in the series was written between summer and autumn of 2020, and focused on the early experience of the pandemic as a health crisis and time of isolation. This third book concerns the global spread of the Omicron variant, accompanying international protests, and the political shifts caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Many newspapers quoted a remark attributed to Lenin to describe this period of time: “There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

Dust from Distant Mountain provides an account of these weeks, as an artist’s book comprising a box within a phase box, containing a concrete poem printed on a concertina, with a summary of events from the first three months of 2022. The box lid depicts a blue moon, with clusters of text and image from the news of this period surrounding the lunar mountain range Montes Cordillera. The base of the box contains dust made from crushed shells and herbs, typically used in folk religion and magic for protection rituals.

The concrete poem within features the word ‘particulate’ altered by insertions and deletions, arranged into a repeating and reflected pattern over the full length of the concertina. It is partly based on Liu Tsung-yüan’s poem ‘Getting Up Past Midnight and Gazing Across the West Garden, I Encounter the Rising Moon’, an ancient Chinese poem of the mid-T'ang period, which was characterised by artistic richness and sociopolitical catastrophe. The description of events on its reverse concerns the spread of the Omicron variant and its effect on UK politics and healthcare, global protests over Covid policies, and developments in international politics due to the invasion of Ukraine. This account includes a history of Babyn Yar, and details of global research that was beginning to reveal the social impact of the pandemic and its expected legacy across the world.

Jennie Cole, Dust from Distant Mountain (2022)

Details:
Book measures approximately 11 x 8 x 5.9 cm (in phase box, approx). As each book is handmade, dimensions may vary slightly.
Concertina 1225cm in length, equivalent of 25 unnumbered A4 pages.
Edition of 16. 
An artist’s book by Jennie Cole. Made in London, 2022.

Construction:
Outer phase box of 270gsm Ebony Black Colorplan paper, hand-stamped with text in metallic silver ink.
Box lid features digital collage depicting the lunar mountain range Montes Cordillera as photographed by NASA in 1967, surrounded by news images from 2022 of Ukrainian women selling flowers, praying in churches, and receiving firearms training, with fragmented text of news articles.
Concertina of pages digitally printed in black ink on 80gsm pastel blue paper, text in Gill Sans. 
Box base covered with Black Aberlave Buckram. 
Box lined with 100gsm Ebony Black Colorplan paper with digitally printed image in base repeating cover photo of Montes Cordillera. Contains fine white dust of crushed shells and herb roots, beneath concertina.

Dust from Distant Mountain features in private and public collections including special collections at University for the Creative Arts (UK), London College of Communication, University of the Arts London (UK), and Wellcome Collection (London, UK).

This artist’s book is available for purchase in London at bookartbookshop, or online from Manticoria.