The book documents the Place Project – a collaboration between the visual artist Kurt Jackson and 32 contemporary writers. Jackson invited each writer to choose, and then justify in words a Place in Britain. Then, in an epic series of journeys Jackson visited and worked at each chosen location responding with a series of paintings, drawings and sculptures.
Contributors and their chosen places include Andy Atkins, Director, Friends of the Earth (Royal Festival Hall); Mark Cocker, nature writer (Blackwater Carr, Norfolk); Ian Collins, art critic (Bat Hall, Dorset); Jim Crace, writer (Spaghetti Junction); Helen Dunmore, writer/poet (Paddington station); Michael Eavis, farmer and festival organiser (Worthy Farm, Glastonbury Festival site); Patrick Gale, writer (A30,West Cornwall) Jimmy Goodwin, musician (Wapley Hill Fort, Herefordshire); Robert Macfarlane, writer (Cairngorm); John Vidal, journalist (The Panorama, Llangollen); Bob Wilson, Director, Greenpeace (River Ouse, Ely).
The project shows not only the diversity of British landscape but more fundamentally will give insights into the concept of Place – the sense of Place, encompassing that collective sense of identity, meaning, longing, nostalgia and attachment within the British psyche.
Kurt Jackson: Place is currently out of print but available from second-hand book stockists.