Finsbury Park to Pimlico

A collection of "found text" - from adverts in the carriage, headlines in newspapers being read, labels on clothing, wording on shopping bags, announcements, text on posters outside the train, conversations...

Displayed

A folding book of journeys, displayed in a corner of my booth at the art foundation end-of-course show in March. The journeys were mostly between City Lit (Holborn) and Finsbury Park.

Vauxhall to Finsbury Park

Writing down as much of the announcements as possible - there seem to be more and more of them. Most disturbing is the automatic announcement when the train has been stopped in a tunnel for a certain amount of time: "London Underground apologises for the delay to your journey" - the driver no longer gets to tell the passengers the reason for the delay. The passengers are captives without any connection to the human who's driving the train.

Twickenham to Bracknell

Starting at Victoria, on the Reading train

Victoria to Finsbury Park

Another necklace, with different loopy "beads" - the chain made up of "this is..." and "the next station is ..." announcements, and the occasional "please keep your luggage with you at all times".

St Giles Church to Lancaster Place

Thrown off the bus early: "this bus terminates here".

Finsbury Park to St Giles Church

Clusters of loops, like beads on a necklace...

Kensal Rise to Crouch Hill

At West Hampstead the woman who sat down beside me had a bag with a swirly pattern; she got off two stations later, at Hampstead Heath.

Finsbury Park to Holborn

This included the escalators out of Holborn station.

Finsbury Park to Holborn

Finsbury Park to Holborn - and back

Developing the spiral format - it's morphing into mazes.

Finsbury Park to Lancaster Gate

Spiral journey lines written in a double-fold accordion book with cover printed with (raised) horizontal journey lines.

Southwark Town Hall to Trafalgar Square

Spiral journey lines, each between two bus stops, added to a book made with printed (raised) journey lines on the cover. Solid circles indicate that the bus stopped in traffic. This bus, meant to go to Oxford Circus, terminated early - the driver said "Listen folks, I just had a call, I'm going to transfer you - there's a 12 just behind".

New Cross to Southwark Town Hall

Highbury to New Cross

King's Cross to Finsbury Park

This new format (trialled in my reflective journal, on happening to get a seat on the tube) arose after I read this by Louise Bourgeois:

"...to rewind is to make a spiral. And the action demonstrates that even though time is unlimited, there is a limit to how much you can put on it. As you are tightening the spiral you must take care.

"If you tighten too much you risk breaking it. It is the same with sewing.

"Sewing without a knot at the end of the thread is not sewing. In this sense the spiral is a metaphor of consistency. I am consistent in my spiral. For me there is no break. There is never an interruption in the spiral because I cannot stand interruptions."

(quoted in Louise Bourgeois, The Fabric Works, Skira, 2010, p140; from a conversation with Paulo Herkenhoff in Louise Bourgeois eds Robert Storr, Paulo Herkenhoff and Allan Schwartzman; Phaidon, 2003, p12)