Artists' Books on show

'Artists' Books' explores the relationship between the image and the written word and was supported by UCL Futures. Inspired by Caroline's research collaboration with writer Michèle Roberts, 'Artists' Books' brings together two artists and two writers.

The first book, 'Repton A.B.C.' is a collaborative project between artist Dryden Goodwin (Slade 1996) and film scriptwriter Tony Grisoni. The pair visited an amateur boxing ring in East London for their inspiration. Tony says of the partnership: "Dryden and myself found ourselves in the amateur boxing ring via the hidden world of new immigrants, a bar in Dalston and Visconti's 'Rocco EI Suoi Fratelli'. We were a team. He was pictures. I was words. That was the deal. As in a movie, the two are inseparable, each defined by the other. A dance or sparring session."

Dryden has exhibited across Europe, working with a diverse range of media including video, film, photography, drawing, painting and printmaking. Central to his practice is both the tension between the still and moving image, and the sound and images. For this book, he has used traditional dry-point etching.

Tony has worked with many directors including John Boorman, Michael Winterbottom and Terry Gilliam, on films including 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas'.

On 26 October 'Repton A.B.C.' will be accompanied by a one-day public exhibition from 11am-5pm at Woburn Square Studios.

The second publication, 'A Seven Day' by writer Jane Borodale and artist Eddie Farrell (Slade 2004) is a narrative in colour and prose-poem, based on their shared interest in the Foundling Hospital. The three archetypal characters - mother, father, infant - speak briefly over the spread of one week, embedded in Eddie's layered, lyrical colour and texture.

Jane's short story 'The Butcher's Daughter' was runner-up in this year's Bridport Prize, and she is currently finishing her first novel. Eddie Farrell's form of expression is deeply rooted in painting and he often works in collaborations.

Jane says: "I enjoyed the contradictions of freedom and constraint which writing very short fiction presents, and writing specifically as a counterpart to Eddie's colour sometimes before the colour was realised, allowed unexpected things to happen along the way."

The Foundling Hospital was established in 1739 by Thomas Coram, who had been appalled by the abandoned and dying children that lined the streets of London. His scheme provided a refuge for these foundlings. Artist William Hogarth and composer George Frideric Handel were both governors of the hospital, and under their influence, the hospital became London's first public art gallery and concert hall, where artists, children and patrons could benefit from the contemporary culture of 'enlightened self-interest'. The Foundling Museum collections include many paintings, an original score of Handel's Messiah, and touching tokens left by despairing mothers in the hope they could identify their children should they come upon better times.

'A Seven Day' will be exhibited at the Foundling Museum from 2 November 2005-29 January 2006.

• Links:
• Slade School of Fine Art
• Foundling Museum