Today was fascinating. I arrived early at Chelsea hoping to be able to go to see the artists books but discovered you either need an appointment or to have reserved a specific one or to go to the open session on a Wednesday at noon. Maybe I'll see if anyone could give me a peek on Friday morning?!
I was in the group that started at Invia. It's small but seemed to have some interesting resources. It was very interesting to learn about how they catalogue their books (by country and then by artist) and ideas around capturing an artists who career in this way. I'm not sure that it's a resource that will have a lot of books that I will want to use, but really interesting to know it's there and accessible.
I really liked one book that was bound with safety pins!
Next we moved onto the Stanley Kubrick archive. I was really excited to see this as he's so famous and although I'm not a huge fan of his work I have seen a few of his films so could relate a little to what we were seeing. I particularly adored Johnny's manuscript from The Shining. The poor secretary having to type the whole ream of paper with the same repeated phrase, and then to do it in multiple different languages!!
The one that really tickled us all was the list of key concerns. It really highlighted his attention to detail, and for me this is a great example of the story behind the making being more exciting than the end product. Kubrick's films aren't really to my taste at all, but I was fascinated by the peek we had into the process of the research and details behind the making of the films.
It got me thinking about archives and wondering whether there is an archive I might be able to access related to Windsor Great Park and within it the Swinley Forest. Surely with the real links there must be something somewhere. An archive of Bagshot Park specifically would be amazing as the original park boundary was much further into the forest than it is now so I could explore the changing shape of the forest.
The sessions we've had have really made me want to delve much more deeply into the history of the forest and maybe try to find a local archive or something else that could have some inspiring pieces or stories held within it. I was thinking about exploring the history of the tree planting and changing uses of the land over the centuries and seeing what I can uncover.