Words We Never Wrote
Presented for the first time at the Hay Festival, Words We Never Wrote explores the meaning of writing, language and storytelling.
Somewhere close to you lie fragments of that story. Scattered words offer glimpses of a narrative etched into the air itself. For the last eighty years, a book that was never read has been trying to find a way back into the world. This is where stories begin, where a story is trying to be told. It wants you to help write it.
Words We Never Wrote is an Ambient Literature work commissioned by the Hay Festival 2018. It addresses the meaning of language and the role of fiction in an increasingly fragmented world. It wears its heart on its sleeve, and owes a debt to Borges, Calvino, Ocampo and especially the writings of Bruno Schulz.
Words We Never Wrote was installed in Arnolfini’s Front Room from June 8th – 9th, 2018. The work was presented within UWE Bristol’s Degree Show.
The work lasts approximately twenty minutes, and takes place indoors.
We all, at a fundamental level, consist of words. As we change, as our lives change us, words become dislodged; my story becomes a part of yours. There are some words though, that remain lost, waiting in the cracks of floorboards, ricocheting off people in busy crowds. As they are lost from one story, they wish to become part of another . . .
