Book 13  Kidnapped. Penn, C. (2008) (Fig.11).  Kidnapped. Unique altered book. Collage, sewing. 24cm x 19cm long x11cm. Collage, Sewing. Book 13. Collection: Cheryl Penn.

For me, the title of the book Kidnapped  reflected   the appropriation of images/text taken from the wide range of sources from which artists make collage, a postmodernist art practice.  Brockleman (2001:2) quoted a 1970s avant-gardist manifesto as saying: In collage, each cited element breaks the continuity or the linearity of the discourse and leads necessarily to a double reading: that of the fragment perceived in relation to its text of origin; that of the same fragment as incorporated into a new whole, a different totality.  The trick of collage consists…of never entirely suppressing the alterity of these elements reunited in a temporary composition.

Sewing the images into the book, as opposed to  gluing them down, is intended to visually equate with the notion of ‘temporary composition’. The images are not merged with the existing artifact, rather they float on the surface, an impermanent arrangement.   The threads which hang outside the book also remind one that everything attached to the book comes from outside the book.  Threads have become an  integral part of my work.  They are used to depict  the way things are all connected and the way things are tied together. They are used to hang words so that the added text sometimes falls outside the textual block.

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