Kayak

KAYAK is an artist’s book that folds land and sea together, beginning a mile from the sea, in an area of Mile End where there are waves in the earth, with boundaries of roads, canals, and railways.

By collapsing distance and location, KAYAK takes land and sea as one, presenting the past in the present in a park. Its volume is of paper, thread and cloth, filled with waves of quotations. The book has concrete, soil and turf construction. Its contours contain salt water, and fresh water.

KAYAK presents an emergency begun on development land, in a context of property development. The work appears as a restless territory that follows the lines of a nautical chart, and the lines of an accountant’s ledger. The book is charted, it is mercantile, it traverses distance, it is double cash.

The text of KAYAK uses songs for its pacing, incorporating elements of sea shanties including Eliza Lee, Rolling Down To Old Maui, Lowlands Away, Boston Harbour, Go To Sea No More, The Bonny Ship The Diamond, Barque In The Harbour, Lowlands, Lowlands Low, and Ten Thousand Miles Away.

Charting a course through the place names referred to in these songs, KAYAK wavers between work and recreation as it departs from and returns to the site of writing, which is simultaneously on land and at sea.

Jennie Cole, KAYAK (2015)

Details:
Book measures 9.5 x 21 x 1.5 cm.
100 unnumbered pages.
Edition of 20.
An artist’s book by Jennie Cole. Made in London, 2015.

Construction:
Full-cloth casebinding with tissue-lined Lavender rayon bookcloth.
Foil-blocked title in red on front cover and metallic blue on back cover.
Endpapers are 150gsm Navy Blue Canford paper.
Inner pages 120gsm Fabriano Accademia.
Text and image inkjet-printed in colour.
Bound with unsupported French link-stitch in white linen thread.
Black silk endbands.

KAYAK features in private and public collections including the Rare Books collection at The Poetry Library, Southbank Centre (London, UK).

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