Graham Martin

Shredding Wordsworth

(Performance Installation)

OS grid ref: CA13 9RX & NY 333 068
7th October: 11am Wordsworth House, Cockermouth moving on to Faeryland tea Rooms, Grasmere in the afternoon.

Selected works and writings of Wordsworth will be shredded, bagged and transformed into contemporary artists bookworks at various venues in a live event designed to intrigue, provoke and engage. This work follows on from an event at Leeds Art Fair, where Graham shredded the complete works of Shakespeare.

After visiting a high street bookshop to purchase a copy of ‘Collected Wordsworth’ the Graham was told all copies were now ‘dead stock’ and kept in the basement, following no sales in two years. In Grasmere Graham bought ‘Selected Wordsworth’ in a second hand shop for £1.50, leaving him to note that Wordsworth was equal to one café latte. In ‘Shredding Wordsworth’ Graham asks, ‘What is the value and worth of Wordsworth in our consumer culture?’ Furthermore, are the romantic and spiritual values of Wordsworth being dumped, shredded and regarded as ‘dead stock’ in our society?