Into the Ancestral Fabric of a Road
(the current iteration of this ever-changing project)
This continuous fabric drawing project is made by walking through environments and collecting rubbings commemorating the history of a place with all its complexities and mundanities. Working in collaboration on location, in this case, The Bottle Factory, Old Kent Road.
I developed this project ‘Rubbing-in Words’ a few years ago by walking and lifting words out of the landscape. I have and will be sending batches of rubbed words to a selection of friends, writers, musicians, and artists we will then play various games with these found words.
These rubbed words come from a multitude of different surfaces ranging from sacred graves and monuments, mundane objects, book spines, street signs, and many overlooked consumer bits and pieces.
You take a piece of paper and rub over the word with crayon or graphite stick. I have over two thousand different rubbed words that are all lifted from physical matter. I didn’t get these words from the internet or chat GPT, I found them when I went for a walk.
This cut up game is a therapeutic exercise designed to take the fear out of using words and language and to help both neurodivergent and neurotypical people overcome creative block.
This mail art project aims to empower and stimulate new ideas through playfulness and perhaps makes us think differently or more deeply about history, place and time.
This is how the game works:
Your job is to create a short piece of creative writing only using these words. You are only allowed to use a rubbed word once. If you need to use small connecting word (and/it/he/she/they/a/if/we/etc.) These words are 'free', you can use them as much as you like.
Don't hesitate to ask me for more or other words if you're stuck, I have over two thousand different rubbed words and can post/send you other words that might help if you're struggling or just want a different set of words altogether.
If you have any other ideas for other games we could play or know of any other people you'd think might want a go, local groups, schools, etc who you think might like to take part in let me know. Contact me if you want to have a go and I can post/send a batch of words to you.