This work was created in conjunction with the Concrete Poet, Paula Claire. This joint project was created when we both simultaneously had been referencing the destructive force of Hiroshima, specifically its impact on the Hiroshima Maidens, a group of women disfigured by the bomb blast and sent to the USA for re-constructive surgery.

I had been creating studio images and portraits that used the negative as the starting point for various experiments and darkroom manipulations. These images are ‘straight’ and use distortion for their effects.

DECLARATIONS Poems 1961-91 reads

DON'T LOOK IN THE MIRROR Cat 323
A typewriter text culminating in the silent contemplation of a series of 5
photographs, plus 1 on the cover; introduction. In memory of 1 of the
'Hiroshima Maidens' whose face was too badly burnt for plastic surgery; she
lives a recluse: and in a rare interview said "I don't look in the mirror."
Text of 13 pages in 3 sections. Photos taken of Paula Claire by Peter Day June 1987.
First Performance by RESOUNDSCORE Peter Stacey playing baroque flute, at
Cheltenham Art Gallery, Chaeltenham Festival of Literature, 6.10.87 and
published as ICPA 17.

Paula Claire

Exhibition
Cheltenham Literature Festival, Sept 1987
Joint Project with Paula Claire forms part of the Concrete Poetry archive here and in the USA.

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