The Pillar - 2nd edition (*signed*)

PLEASE NOTE: We are offering here copies of the second printing of this book (September 2020).

Presentation by Nobody Books:

" « The landscape that surrounds my home in Sweden can be misleading. The bird activity it contains is diluted by the vastness of the flat open land and sky, which gives the impression that very little is going on.

In January 2015, with the inkling of an idea that their activity might be more prevalent than I first thought, I decided to try to pull the birds from the sky. On the edge of a field next to a stream I set up a 6 cm-diameter stage in the form of a wooden pillar about one and half metres high. Opposite it I placed another, the same size, on which I mounted a motion-sensor camera.

When I visited the camera a few days later, to my surprise, it had worked. The pillar had funnelled the birds from the sky offering them a place to rest, feed, nurse their young, and look around. I was captivated. The images were often chaotic, the birds offbeat and awkward like contortionists, but the shapes and soft lines made by their bodies and wings were arresting. From my kitchen window the pillar appeared like a matchstick in the flat distance yet the absence afforded the birds a greater presence in my mind. Even when I was out of the country I would be imagining the activity on the stage. (...)

It is now four years since the project began and the weather-beaten wooden pillar has become moulded into the landscape as if it has always been there. I often think of it like a sundial that occasionally catches the arc of the sun. In the summer months, the dry weather prompts cracks to appear and the pillar becomes brittle. In the autumn the pillar darkens in tone absorbing water again triggering moss to swell and spread. Over time the 6 cm wooden stage has become smoother as if slightly polished by the landing of many feet. The surface grain of the wood is more pronounced where claws have scraped between the growth rings.

I have since learned that the region of Skåne, where I live, is home to 192 of the 250 species of birds that are native to Sweden.  »

The book contains, inserted, an 8-page saddle-stitched booklet with the text Birdland by Karl Ove Knausgård (in English only).

    --  Stephen Gill   "

PLEASE NOTE: We are offering here copies of the second printing of this book (September 2020).

224 pages - Linen hardcover

Nobody Books, 2019 (2nd edition, 2020)

Format : 21.6 x 27 cm

*Signed*

New - Mint condition