Robert Parkinson
I Work With Animals
- Concertina
- Silver Foil Hardcover
- 240 x 130mm
- Digital Printing
- 50 pages
- 1st Edition of 100
- November 2024
- Typesetting by Taxi Cab Industries
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When my parents first met, my Dad casually mentioned just that “I Work with Animals”. When I first heard this I nearly wet myself, understanding what my Dad’s previous workplace was. On the surface this sounds like a very caring and considered remark to impress my Mum; was he a vet, or did he work at an animal sanctuary or, even as a farmer. But no, none of the above.
My Dad worked in an abattoir and slaughtered hundreds of animals on a daily basis to make ends meet, as they say… It was a gruelling job and made total sense to my Dad, working long hard hours for financial security. Surprisingly, my Mum wasn’t scared off by his job and eventually they tied the knot. Over time, my Dad’s skills as a slaughterer gained a bit of recognition. So much so, he was offered a job in Norway with decent pay for 6 months. Enough to buy my childhood house with my Mum. To this day they still call it home.
I was flabbergasted when my Mum recently dug out an old, ratty plastic bag that resembled Dennis the Menace’s jumper. It housed a documentation of my Dad’s trip working away from home; postcards, letters to my Mum, beer mats, slaughterhouse catalogues, newspaper clippings and the mother-load... photographs. Photography seems to be in my blood. My Grandad Keith (of which my middlename comes from) was an avid photographer of traction engines and anything with an engineering edge, as I guess, this was his job. My Dad followed suit when given the opportunity to do so in Norway.
As I sifted through this visual archive I was greeted with stunning landscapes, utilitarian architecture and tomfoolery (which often comes with lads working away from home), sharing single beds, pushing each other on swings and the casual ‘take a photo of me next to this building’ photograph. This is where my Dad’s signature photography pose was discovered: left hand in denim trouser pocket, right hand shield-ing his eyes from the sun.
To this day, it is still in action. These initial images were a typical retrospective of a trip away from home, but there was more. My Dads pride of his work seeped into these photos and was (somehow) allowed to take photographs within the abattoir. Team photos with blood-stained aprons, carcasses hanging post-skinning, portraits knee high in bloodbaths, elbow deep in sheep, and ripping limbs from animals. Most, with a smile on their faces.
As gruesome as they look, the photographs act more than a record to shock, they are a documentation of labourers wanting to do their jobs well. I would argue that if you find this shocking you are either hypocrite or a non-meat eater (no judgement here, I have dabbled myself). As a youngster I was brought up with the knowledge of where meat came from and what parts of an animal’s body I was eating in a pie or sausage.
As the years have passed, the distance from field to consumption seems to have been removed further and further and to some, this book may act as a stark reminder. This alongside the basterdisation of working class art methodologies in recent times (cue the banner making and tufting workshops), I find myself reluctant to share and talk about this subject matter, but they are here, and I feel it’s more important to highlight than to avoid this unsung archive.
For me, this book is a glimpse of my childhood, parents working for me and my sister to have a good life, contrasted alongside an ethical foundation around eating food from all parts of an animal and an aware-ness of how this came to be sat on a plate. For you, this may be something completely different but I hope this book brings some joy in your life.
Love to my Mum, Dad and family.
Robert
When my parents first met, my Dad casually mentioned just that “I Work with Animals”. When I first heard this I nearly wet myself, understanding what my Dad’s previous workplace was. On the surface this sounds like a very caring and considered remark to impress my Mum; was he a vet, or did he work at an animal sanctuary or, even as a farmer. But no, none of the above.
My Dad worked in an abattoir and slaughtered hundreds of animals on a daily basis to make ends meet, as they say… It was a gruelling job and made total sense to my Dad, working long hard hours for financial security. Surprisingly, my Mum wasn’t scared off by his job and eventually they tied the knot. Over time, my Dad’s skills as a slaughterer gained a bit of recognition. So much so, he was offered a job in Norway with decent pay for 6 months. Enough to buy my childhood house with my Mum. To this day they still call it home.
I was flabbergasted when my Mum recently dug out an old, ratty plastic bag that resembled Dennis the Menace’s jumper. It housed a documentation of my Dad’s trip working away from home; postcards, letters to my Mum, beer mats, slaughterhouse catalogues, newspaper clippings and the mother-load... photographs. Photography seems to be in my blood. My Grandad Keith (of which my middlename comes from) was an avid photographer of traction engines and anything with an engineering edge, as I guess, this was his job. My Dad followed suit when given the opportunity to do so in Norway.
As I sifted through this visual archive I was greeted with stunning landscapes, utilitarian architecture and tomfoolery (which often comes with lads working away from home), sharing single beds, pushing each other on swings and the casual ‘take a photo of me next to this building’ photograph. This is where my Dad’s signature photography pose was discovered: left hand in denim trouser pocket, right hand shield-ing his eyes from the sun.
To this day, it is still in action. These initial images were a typical retrospective of a trip away from home, but there was more. My Dads pride of his work seeped into these photos and was (somehow) allowed to take photographs within the abattoir. Team photos with blood-stained aprons, carcasses hanging post-skinning, portraits knee high in bloodbaths, elbow deep in sheep, and ripping limbs from animals. Most, with a smile on their faces.
As gruesome as they look, the photographs act more than a record to shock, they are a documentation of labourers wanting to do their jobs well. I would argue that if you find this shocking you are either hypocrite or a non-meat eater (no judgement here, I have dabbled myself). As a youngster I was brought up with the knowledge of where meat came from and what parts of an animal’s body I was eating in a pie or sausage.
As the years have passed, the distance from field to consumption seems to have been removed further and further and to some, this book may act as a stark reminder. This alongside the basterdisation of working class art methodologies in recent times (cue the banner making and tufting workshops), I find myself reluctant to share and talk about this subject matter, but they are here, and I feel it’s more important to highlight than to avoid this unsung archive.
For me, this book is a glimpse of my childhood, parents working for me and my sister to have a good life, contrasted alongside an ethical foundation around eating food from all parts of an animal and an aware-ness of how this came to be sat on a plate. For you, this may be something completely different but I hope this book brings some joy in your life.
Love to my Mum, Dad and family.
Robert
Bound Art Book Fair
Manchester (UK)
2024
Inventory Art Book Fair
London (UK)
2024
Tyrone Williams
Chiasm Book Signing
Offprint, Photo London (UK)
17.05.24
Ghent Art Book Fair
Ghent (BE)
2024
Many photographers have experimented with the 'Call & Response' model of collaboration, where images function like links in a chain — a visual duel, or game of chess. This book, in which these two photographers pair up their photographs, feels more to me like a matching card game.“Chiasm” describes in biology the point at which two filamentous structures like a tendon or nerve diagonally intersect in an X, most notably the nerves connecting each eyeball to the brain’s opposite hemisphere. In language, chiasm describes a compound sentence in which, without word repetition, the first half’s grammar is inverted in the second.Take the second spread. The metal fence gives definition to the green fabric beneath, the ripples’ form structured by the shadow projected upon it. On the right, reflections in undulating metal break down the green wall’s structure. They are parallel in content; in relationship, inverted. As discrete visual objects, they achieve a kind of synthesis.Though contrived well with the art of close selection, all these pictures are true to reality; they aren’t heavily manipulated, aren’t synthetic. We see these things in daily life, and there little of the broken brickwork, tangled wires, street puddles, plastic packaging and garish shop signs are things we particularly want to notice.
Yet here their aesthetic potential is recognised and demonstrated. There is real value in sharing such curios with others, for, through love of visual communication, a project like Chiasm might emerge. As Dinelle & Williams have, two people might find crossover in their ways of seeing — each side sharing a little of the other, but never quite overlapping.
Many photographers have experimented with the 'Call & Response' model of collaboration, where images function like links in a chain — a visual duel, or game of chess. This book, in which these two photographers pair up their photographs, feels more to me like a matching card game.“Chiasm” describes in biology the point at which two filamentous structures like a tendon or nerve diagonally intersect in an X, most notably the nerves connecting each eyeball to the brain’s opposite hemisphere. In language, chiasm describes a compound sentence in which, without word repetition, the first half’s grammar is inverted in the second.Take the second spread. The metal fence gives definition to the green fabric beneath, the ripples’ form structured by the shadow projected upon it. On the right, reflections in undulating metal break down the green wall’s structure. They are parallel in content; in relationship, inverted. As discrete visual objects, they achieve a kind of synthesis.Though contrived well with the art of close selection, all these pictures are true to reality; they aren’t heavily manipulated, aren’t synthetic. We see these things in daily life, and there little of the broken brickwork, tangled wires, street puddles, plastic packaging and garish shop signs are things we particularly want to notice.
Yet here their aesthetic potential is recognised and demonstrated. There is real value in sharing such curios with others, for, through love of visual communication, a project like Chiasm might emerge. As Dinelle & Williams have, two people might find crossover in their ways of seeing — each side sharing a little of the other, but never quite overlapping.
Bound Art Book Fair
Manchester (UK)
2023
BOP
Bristol (UK)
2023
Scarf by Taxi Cab Industries
Scarf by Taxi Cab Industries
New Western Bingo opened on Eyre Avenue in Armley, Leeds in 1964. Located in what was once the Palace Picture Hall, in 1964 the space underwent a conversion to become an independent bingo club, New Western Bingo
In October 2016, a fire broke out in a neighbouring sauna and spread to the bingo hall roof. The club was subsequently demolished, and an empty loft left in the place of where the bingo hall once was, there are now plans to build housing on the land where it once stood.
Prior to the fire, Sophie Stafford visited the bingo hall in 2013 over the course of a year photographed the hall, it s regular members and its employees. This book is a collection of images before the fire, a memorial to the lost bingo hall and a celebration of its original members and employees.
New Western Bingo opened on Eyre Avenue in Armley, Leeds in 1964. Located in what was once the Palace Picture Hall, in 1964 the space underwent a conversion to become an independent bingo club, New Western Bingo
In October 2016, a fire broke out in a neighbouring sauna and spread to the bingo hall roof. The club was subsequently demolished, and an empty loft left in the place of where the bingo hall once was, there are now plans to build housing on the land where it once stood.
Prior to the fire, Sophie Stafford visited the bingo hall in 2013 over the course of a year photographed the hall, it s regular members and its employees. This book is a collection of images before the fire, a memorial to the lost bingo hall and a celebration of its original members and employees.
Sophie Stafford
New Western Bingo Launch
Village, Leeds (UK)
16.12.22
Bound Art Book Fair
Manchester (UK)
2022
Recreo, Valencia Art Book Fair
Valencia (ES)
2022
Luke Pickering
ISM Launch
Village, Manchester (UK)
23.09.22
Miss Read, Berlin Art Book Fair
Berlin (DE)
2022
Kat Wood
Skudde Launch
Village, Manchester (UK)
14.04.22
A collection of poems by Berlin based artist Sisi Savidge.
"We drip through our days, connecting faster in flirt-filled springs before summer, hoping to enjoy the weather without ever needing to talk about it. Ending this kitchen sweetness, our pints spill onto carpets littered with rust as the sweat from our eyelids is once again dry and we look into the faces of the people we knew how to love; realising all that is left and quiet between us."
A collection of poems by Berlin based artist Sisi Savidge.
"We drip through our days, connecting faster in flirt-filled springs before summer, hoping to enjoy the weather without ever needing to talk about it. Ending this kitchen sweetness, our pints spill onto carpets littered with rust as the sweat from our eyelids is once again dry and we look into the faces of the people we knew how to love; realising all that is left and quiet between us."
Sisi Savidge
Nice Weather Launch
ORi Berlin, Berlin (DE)
26.11.21
Bound Art Book Fair
Manchester (UK)
2021
Vancouver Art Book Fair [online]
Vancouver (CA)
2021
Recreo, Valencia Art Book Fair
Valencia (ES)
2021
“A black ominous shape forms - we have no context, it is simply present. It forms in a mass of dark pixels.
The low resolution tree branches which line the border spaces make it all too mundane - the edge of a field cloaked in mud. As we look at the images we’re not sure what to make of them, all too reminiscent of the all telling truth of close circuit television, but also too vague to ever fall in line with the usual documentarian photobook.
Pages flick past, a narrative is formed - only to be dismissed as the landscape changes entirely, and this initial form is thrown away. Nothing is real, but it is all too real. The pixel is now our only real truth, and even that is now manipulated and twisted in the age of the livestream where nothing is experienced as the real.
This intangible mass passes us, unattainable, we are now but a spectator to reality, with no authority over it. We look on, as this mass rolls on. It affects us, but we cannot change it as it passes. The greys and browns mix over the course, their muddiness a reflection of our own clarity of vision towards the world.”
Wes Foster
“A black ominous shape forms - we have no context, it is simply present. It forms in a mass of dark pixels.
The low resolution tree branches which line the border spaces make it all too mundane - the edge of a field cloaked in mud. As we look at the images we’re not sure what to make of them, all too reminiscent of the all telling truth of close circuit television, but also too vague to ever fall in line with the usual documentarian photobook.
Pages flick past, a narrative is formed - only to be dismissed as the landscape changes entirely, and this initial form is thrown away. Nothing is real, but it is all too real. The pixel is now our only real truth, and even that is now manipulated and twisted in the age of the livestream where nothing is experienced as the real.
This intangible mass passes us, unattainable, we are now but a spectator to reality, with no authority over it. We look on, as this mass rolls on. It affects us, but we cannot change it as it passes. The greys and browns mix over the course, their muddiness a reflection of our own clarity of vision towards the world.”
Wes Foster
"Impact and outcome it seems gentle in this moment, even in its coming to be it's only a change in time, could you bloom? This time the aftermath of water, emerged a new landscape, carving new pathways. Holding new possibilities textures, forms. Merely visitors we find our stage cracked and layered, peeling upwards from the ground a platform, a canvas built of clay, a sculpted land. The depth of orange curves of salt ground as pigment, ground up earth. The artist collaborates with you."
"Impact and outcome it seems gentle in this moment, even in its coming to be it's only a change in time, could you bloom? This time the aftermath of water, emerged a new landscape, carving new pathways. Holding new possibilities textures, forms. Merely visitors we find our stage cracked and layered, peeling upwards from the ground a platform, a canvas built of clay, a sculpted land. The depth of orange curves of salt ground as pigment, ground up earth. The artist collaborates with you."
Hypertext, Bound Art Book Fair [online]
Manchester (UK)
2020
Recreo, Valencia Art Book Fair [online]
Valencia (ES)
2020
Print Perform Present
Leeds (UK)
2020
"The American road trip has an important place within the history of photography as David Campany outlines in his book ‘The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip’ (Aperture, New York. 2014). The many journeys of photographers travelling America and experiencing life on the road has resulted in iconic bodies of work that have contributed to our visual awareness of ‘American Surfaces’ (as Stephen Shore’s book title clearly articulates). In the series ‘This Way For Fun!’ we are presented with a different perspective and unusual view of some familiar American scenes. Brook’s online American road trip through open access CCTV cameras offers a different insight.
Whilst the images themselves are intriguing, this series also manages to capture something outside of the frame. ‘This Way For Fun!’ is able to represent the state of mind of a nation. The security conscious individuals who set up cameras to keep watch over banal scenes manage to communicate their fear, paranoia and insecurities to the viewer. This series also outlines the many opportunities for voyeurism with new technology. Photography has often been described as a ‘window on the world’, maybe ‘cameras of the world’ would be appropriate to describe the sheer scale of cameras available that Brook was able to utilise, unbeknown to the individuals who installed them.
Please pay attention as you travel through these pages. These seemingly quiet and distant images of an America devoid of people, captured using surveillance technology, may appear banal on the surface but they reveal far more than there is to see here. Enjoy the ride!"
- Adrian Davies
"The American road trip has an important place within the history of photography as David Campany outlines in his book ‘The Open Road: Photography and the American Road Trip’ (Aperture, New York. 2014). The many journeys of photographers travelling America and experiencing life on the road has resulted in iconic bodies of work that have contributed to our visual awareness of ‘American Surfaces’ (as Stephen Shore’s book title clearly articulates). In the series ‘This Way For Fun!’ we are presented with a different perspective and unusual view of some familiar American scenes. Brook’s online American road trip through open access CCTV cameras offers a different insight.
Whilst the images themselves are intriguing, this series also manages to capture something outside of the frame. ‘This Way For Fun!’ is able to represent the state of mind of a nation. The security conscious individuals who set up cameras to keep watch over banal scenes manage to communicate their fear, paranoia and insecurities to the viewer. This series also outlines the many opportunities for voyeurism with new technology. Photography has often been described as a ‘window on the world’, maybe ‘cameras of the world’ would be appropriate to describe the sheer scale of cameras available that Brook was able to utilise, unbeknown to the individuals who installed them.
Please pay attention as you travel through these pages. These seemingly quiet and distant images of an America devoid of people, captured using surveillance technology, may appear banal on the surface but they reveal far more than there is to see here. Enjoy the ride!"
- Adrian Davies
Jim Brook
This Way for Fun! Launch
Village, Leeds (UK)
31.01.20
Index Art Book Fair
Mexico City (MEX)
2020
This publication started with just a simple method of binding with no thought on its content or purpose. The orange book cloth used for the cover was salvaged from a skip where the artist works.
The orange colour was an obvious starting point for the content, so the artist revisited his personal archive for images with orange in them. The way these forgotten images have been repurposed reflects the way that the book cloth was discovered, dug up from nothing in particular.
This publication started with just a simple method of binding with no thought on its content or purpose. The orange book cloth used for the cover was salvaged from a skip where the artist works.
The orange colour was an obvious starting point for the content, so the artist revisited his personal archive for images with orange in them. The way these forgotten images have been repurposed reflects the way that the book cloth was discovered, dug up from nothing in particular.
Bound Art Book Fair
Manchester (UK)
2019
Vienna Art Book Fair #1
Vienna (AUT)
2019
Wiels Art Book Fair
Brussels (BEL)
2019
Kathryn Wood studied Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art and is now working from her studio based hill-farm in The Peak District National Park.
Prawn Dumping is an environmentally-inspired photographic project, a mixture of images, performance and fractured narratives spliced together recounting several trips the artist made to various hill-farms in the North West of England. By relocating back to the farm that the artist was raised on, enables her to capture the everyday experiences of farming and rediscover the environment that she had grown increasingly detached from.
Central to Wood’s practice is a direct physical engagement with the labour of farming. During her trips to the Peak District National Park she began to take on the role of the farmer, from which she makes photographic works about the experience; the resultant works portray a personal insight into the implicit care and consideration small-scale farmers have for both their animals and their working and living environment.
Kathryn Wood studied Fine Art Photography at the Glasgow School of Art and is now working from her studio based hill-farm in The Peak District National Park.
Prawn Dumping is an environmentally-inspired photographic project, a mixture of images, performance and fractured narratives spliced together recounting several trips the artist made to various hill-farms in the North West of England. By relocating back to the farm that the artist was raised on, enables her to capture the everyday experiences of farming and rediscover the environment that she had grown increasingly detached from.
Central to Wood’s practice is a direct physical engagement with the labour of farming. During her trips to the Peak District National Park she began to take on the role of the farmer, from which she makes photographic works about the experience; the resultant works portray a personal insight into the implicit care and consideration small-scale farmers have for both their animals and their working and living environment.
Kat Wood
Prawn Dumpling Launch
Rare Mags, Stockport (UK)
16.08.19
Format Book Market
Derby (UK)
2019
"Water as a liquid we cannot live without. Often we disguise it in other things for pleasure, make it sweet, or hot.
In recordings from online lectures, interviews and panel discussions, where people talk at length with an intended audience, we perhaps see water in its simplest form.
The plainness of water in a glass can be its. As both clear materials combine to make something of almost unnoticeable substance. Here, water is transparent, both in its appearance, and as an action. Do we notice when someone takes a sip from a glass of water?
In a world of self-help talks taking a drink during a performance, could be a sign of weakness, a dependence on a material outside of our own resource, is it a prop, something to move, to turn our attention to, does it focus our thoughts, or go neglected?
To focus on objects has long been an exercise for artists, finding mediation in capturing the world of the visible in still life studies. In stillness we contemplate on our relationship as humans with the environment around us.
In these framed stills taken from videos of up to an hour in length, the water develops a story, a movement of its own as it is picked up, put down, and emptied, slowly."
"Water as a liquid we cannot live without. Often we disguise it in other things for pleasure, make it sweet, or hot.
In recordings from online lectures, interviews and panel discussions, where people talk at length with an intended audience, we perhaps see water in its simplest form.
The plainness of water in a glass can be its. As both clear materials combine to make something of almost unnoticeable substance. Here, water is transparent, both in its appearance, and as an action. Do we notice when someone takes a sip from a glass of water?
In a world of self-help talks taking a drink during a performance, could be a sign of weakness, a dependence on a material outside of our own resource, is it a prop, something to move, to turn our attention to, does it focus our thoughts, or go neglected?
To focus on objects has long been an exercise for artists, finding mediation in capturing the world of the visible in still life studies. In stillness we contemplate on our relationship as humans with the environment around us.
In these framed stills taken from videos of up to an hour in length, the water develops a story, a movement of its own as it is picked up, put down, and emptied, slowly."
Impressions Gallery Photobook Fair
Bradford (UK)
2018
Bound Art Book Fair
Manchester (UK)
2018
Bringing together a survey of work in various forms from 2017-2018. Installation views, studies, photographs and details from paintings are carefully curated to engage the viewer in a conversation with what appears on the pages. These paintings explore process-led abstraction, improvisation and the possibilities of what it means to make paintings within contemporary art practice now.
10 copies of the 100, have been hand painted by the artist.
Bringing together a survey of work in various forms from 2017-2018. Installation views, studies, photographs and details from paintings are carefully curated to engage the viewer in a conversation with what appears on the pages. These paintings explore process-led abstraction, improvisation and the possibilities of what it means to make paintings within contemporary art practice now.
10 copies of the 100, have been hand painted by the artist.
Don't pull it down, portrays the Salford pubs of old, as a space where the personality of the institution is dictated by that of the landlord and not the brand.
"Don't pull it down, don't pull it down. You're crushing old Salford right to the ground. Don't pull it down, don't pull it down. Our pub is our pleasure, our pleasure is our own."
Archive photographs from the Salford Local History Library.
Don't pull it down, portrays the Salford pubs of old, as a space where the personality of the institution is dictated by that of the landlord and not the brand.
"Don't pull it down, don't pull it down. You're crushing old Salford right to the ground. Don't pull it down, don't pull it down. Our pub is our pleasure, our pleasure is our own."
Archive photographs from the Salford Local History Library.
Open Eye Gallery,
Liverpool (UK)
2018