Process #2
My degree project was a book documenting the Irish Diaspora’s journeys from Ireland to England. I photographed and interviewed people in the various Irish centers around London: the London Irish Center, the Luton Irish Forum and the South London Irish Association. The book itself was hand-printed and bound but my bookmaking skills are very lacking! As such, I enlisted the help of my friend Chloe (a 2015 UAL Wimbledon graduate in Print and Time-based Media) to help me fix the binding and structure of the book itself.
Chloe won the Wandle Studio Prize for 2015/16 so she has use of a studio space at Merton Abbey Mills where she runs an “alternative book-makery” called Object Book.
Original book
How it stood
Lying flat
Attempt at attching the covers
I attempted to attach the covers and put too much glue on the front
The binding was too loose so pages would move
Cutting the binding off each folio
Placing the first cover
Sewing the first section
Tying a kettle stitch at the end
Sewing the fourth folio to the third with a kettle stitch
The cross stitch was made by putting the thread through two layers of thread on the folios and making a X shape and tying a kettle stitich
Exposed biding
Kettle stitches at the end of each folio
Flattening in the nipping press
PS: I’m doing photo-book narrative workshops at Object Book on the 6th of August. More details to follow.
