Thom Bridge

You can now find copies of The City & The City on the @surface.editions website. The book is £18 + p&p and it can be shipped internationally. If you’re in South London or Manchester, I’ve also got some copies in my studio and the MMU photo office. Get in touch if you’d like to pick up a copy in person or if you’d like one of the very last numbered launch copies with special red, blue or green covers. We’re also doing 10 copies with a pair of small editioned archival pigment prints—more info very soon. The City & The City is a recursive photographic exchange between artists and researchers Thom Bridge (SE/UK), living and working between London and Manchester, and Taisuke Koyama (JP), living and working in Tokyo. Their collaborative dialogue playfully explores the surfaces of the artists’ three home cities, including a recent pastel shift found in colour palettes, stationary, anime characters and art supplies. With fast, lo-fi printing, inverted images of the cities’ renewal, demolition and reconstruction are transferred on to cheap paper, and the city as we know it—created by a mix of societal needs and desires through urban planning—emerges as an infinite array of irreversible surfaces. Even if the prints were to be reversed, the reality of the city wouldn’t return. It may only exist as an image in our imaginations. The City & The City is the result of Chapter 5, a dialogue between Thom Bridge & Taisuke Koyama originally commissioned by @_chapters___ . Further details, including documentation of the pair’s process can be found on the Chapters website.

The City & The City was recently featured in the bookshelf section of @bjp1854 ’s One To Watch Issue. Extra nice to share a spread with my @staffordshirest studio partner @eleonoraagostini and her first monograph A Study on Waitressing published by @witty_books . Thank you @dismy for the write up! You can find copies of The City & The City published by @surface.editions on their website or @tpgbookshop & @flotsambooks . The book is the first outcome of a dialogue between @taisuke_koyama and I initiated by @_chapters___ , more information about our process can be found on the Chapters website.

Two weeks ago Pool V came to a close with a one-night-only exhibition, performances and screening @harbordistrict ’s Harbor View Plaza in Milwaukee WI. Bringing together music, poetry & readings, installations and kite flying, the evening celebrated the array of responses made by the 12 artists that joined @sonja_rthomsen and I for five days along the shores of Lake Michigan, plus a dusk screening of 16mm artist films curated by @be_right_balcom in response to themes we explored during the workshop. On our final day together we also dipped our toes in the lake at Seven Bridges and attended openings for the Mary L Nohl Fellowships @haggertymuseum and @hbatez @under____________score . A huge thank you to the artists that joined us, the brilliant guests we shared space with during the week, @harbordistrict , @theopen.fund and to Sonja. #poolv #poolmilwaukee #milwaukee #artistsupportartists #artistresidency Pool V Cohort: @katie__batten , @tyanna_buie , @billiecarter_ , @_maeve_the_wave_ , @joseepedneault , @olivea.m , @kyle.six , @nicolejshaver , @georgeslade.photo , @amanda_smithivas , @chuckstebelton & @siristensberg The screening What The Water Says included films by: David Gatten, Nazli Dince (@nazlidincel ), Barbara Hammer, Rick Hancox, Sonja Thomsen & Thom Bridge, Greta Snider and Mike Stoltz (@m1k35t0ltz ) with film prints provided by Canyon Cinema. Pool V Guests & Collaborators: Wisconsin Poet Laureate @brenda.cardenas.754 , Landscape Architect and @villaterracemuseum Board Member Jennifer Current @current.habitat , Artists Regina Agu @sun_ria & Ben Balcom @be_right_balcom , @milwaukeeart Photography & Media Arts Curator @kaygegay , @uwmfreshwater Water Policy Fellows Emma Ehrich & Peyton McCauley, Biologist and Assistant Professor @uwmfreshwater Ben Peterson, @villaterracemuseum Board Member Jim Ollrogge, @harbordistrict Operations Manager Katie Stensberg and finally Dan and the brilliant team at The UPS Store on N Jefferson St. Pool V was generously supported by @theopen.fund through The Poor Farm, with funding from @warholfoundation & @ruthfoundationforthearts . Cover Image: @olivea.m

The last 3, come find them and me this afternoon @surface.editions ’ A Bigger Book Fair table @peckham24photo . We’re down the back, towards The Photocopy Club In Transit van. The City & The City is a recursive photographic exchange between artists and researchers Thom Bridge (SE/UK), living and working between London and Manchester, and @taisuke_koyama (JP), living and working in Tokyo. Their collaborative dialogue playfully explores the surfaces of the artists’ three home cities, including a recent pastel shift found in colour palettes, stationary, anime characters and art supplies. With fast, lo-fi printing, inverted images of the cities’ renewal, demolition and reconstruction are transferred on to cheap paper, and the city as we know it—created by a mix of societal needs and desires through urban planning—emerges as an infinite array of irreversible surfaces. Even if the prints were to be reversed, the reality of the city wouldn’t return. It may only exist as an image in our imaginations. The images in The City & The City focus not on specific places, but the cyclical scenes of assembly, scrapping, upheaval, displacement, landscaping and regeneration commonly seen across, around and in-between sites of newly built streets, in seemingly endless construction sites and neglected passages and thoroughfares. The project takes its title from British author China Miéville’s 2009 novel of the same name that imagines two interspliced cities, each of whose citizens are forbidden to go into or acknowledge the other. Areas where these complicated sites intermesh are known as crosshatches, with a third mythical city said to occupy the space between them.

The very last few copies of The City & The City made with @taisuke_koyama are available from @surface.editions ’ table this weekend at ABBF @peckham24photo . Come say hello to @domfletch_ & @richhigginbottom & I. Thanks to @_chapters___ for facilitating the dialogue between Taisuke & I that started the project.

This is what happens when you bind books in @msoa.printmaking.bookbinding and ask @georgegracegibson to take some snaps of you with your books—thanks George! @pollypalmerini and I will both have copies of our books at A Bigger Book Fair @peckham24photo this weekend and we’ll be floating around too. You’ll find Polly’s sensitive and brilliant Checkerboard Studies with Peer Matters and the very last copies of The City & The City with @taisuke_koyama & @_chapters___ will be with @surface.editions . If you’re lucky @richhigginbottom & @domfletch_ might also have a few copies of the limited edition Checkerboard print they made with Polly. We’ve had fun binding our books this week alongside our graduating @mmu.photography students who have their own table at ABBF ahead of their degree show opening in Manchester, 5–20 June. We’re really excited for them, please do stop by this weekend and spend some time with their impressive publications and prints.

Time for some change, I’ve had my Mamiya 7ii since 2011 when I bought it from great friend @andrewpbruce . I’m now looking for it to be looked after by someone else. I’m interested in selling it to someone I know or a friend of a friend, in the first instance. Please get in touch via email if this is you (I don’t reliably/regularly check Instagram). I commute between London & Manchester so could meet in either. I’ve got a body, 65mm & 80mm lenses plus boxes for the lot. You can have them all as one or possibly the body and 80 together and the 65 separately. It’s all in very good working shape, apart from the Y from the strap which vanished into thin air. Fun pics from @theobridge , @ohnetitel and I over the years for The ‘gram.

Now open in @modal_soda @schoolofdigitalarts in Manchester: Sessions in Play, a group exhibition showcasing the SODA Early Career Researchers @mcrschart @manmetuni . @sonja_rthomsen and are I exhibiting a new iteration of our pool collaboration that brings together documentation, fragments and reworkings from our pool archive as a 6-metre cut-out and draped photographic print and a large scale projection of our 4-minute film pool ii (2020), originally screened and projected on a balcony in Izmir for the artist-run festival @balconnection . A really big thank you to @owenramsay_ for the brilliant install tech help.

Looking forward to seeing some Manchester folks on Saturday for performances and the private view of @division_of_labour ’s NEWSROOM @paradiseworks_ between 5–9pm. @theobridge and I are showing some of our A2 double-sided positive and negative newsprint posters. NEWSROOM PV, Paradise Works Open Studios and @mcrcontemporary AfterParty 22 November, 5-9pm Unit 30 Division of Labour c/o Paradise Works, East Philip St, Salford, M37LE NEWSROOM is an evolving exhibition that explores the relationship between art, newspapers, and the circulation of stories. Taking place across Division of Labour and Paradise Works this November, the project transforms the gallery into a live newsroom and print workshop, inviting collaboration, contribution, and participation from artists, writers, organisers, and the public. The backdrop of The Newsroom will be artworks by The Artist Taxi Driver, alongside contributions from other invited artists (to be confirmed), setting the tone for a space charged with urgency, dissent, humour, and dialogue. Artists: The Artist Taxi Driver, Charlie & Dagny Hay, Richard Shields, Laurie Driver, Jack Brown, Jez Dolan and more

This weekend it’s @boundartbookfair @whitworthart in Manchester, there you’ll find the last few copies of The City & The City with @taisuke_koyama & @thom_bridge published by @surface.editions . The book was launched at Bound last year, and to celebrate the last few copies we’ve made some limited edition double-sided posters to mark the occasion. Do go and say hello to @domfletch_ & @richhigginbottom at the Surface Editions table tomorrow. Thanks Rich for the photos!

Helen Chadwick: Life Pleasures @hepworthwakefield and Helen Chadwick: Artist, Researcher, Archivist @leedsartgallery . Enjoying hopping from Manchester across the North West, being based between Manchester and London I find it really exciting that the hour you could spend getting across London you can get to Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, Blackpool, Bradford etc.

Yesterday I was diagnosed with ADHD at 38 through right to chose. Today I went for a long walk and talk, then sauna, by the sea. I wouldn’t be where I’m at without the support and kindness of some wonderful friends, my partner, my family and my Manchester colleagues. Talking about it has really helped, thank you to them for listening and seeing me. Sharing and selfie to remember what this feels like and encourage openness.