Windows of Wonder. Lewes: Fitzroy House Window (image by Sarah Weal)

Windows of Wonder brings together a group of diverse and established Lewes artists whose practices engage with the world of objects and collections, reimagined, refashioned and reframed. Using empty retail space on Lewes High St, East Sussex, they have created individual window installations to make a trail, to stimulate questions on where we can encounter art and what art can be.  www.windowsofwonder.co.uk

My window at Fitzroy House features a selection of sculptures from my artist archive, some of my writing – and a curated shelf of books that have influenced or informed my recent literature projects set across the South Downs. All for this beautiful window of Lewes’ first public library (1862 – 1956).

Sculptures in my window are as follows:

The Instrument that Cannot be Played (2009-12).Materials: Santoor, computer mouse + lead, recycled velvet, organza, kilim wool and cotton. Note: Durational sculpture, begun in response to the green protest movement in Iran, Summer 2009. Finished in 2012.

Dare to be Free (2015) Materials: Typewriter, mixed cloth, extract from Free Woman to Free Man by Cicely Hamilton (from A Pageant of Great Women, 1909) Note: Sculpture for the 1897 Foundation of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Society Banner for Parliament in the Making/ Magna Carta Anniversaries.

An Act (2015). Materials: scrolls made from recycled fabrics from countries connected to the UK through Empire, paper, text. Note: Sculpture for The 1965 Race Relations Act Banner for Parliament in the Making/ Magna Carta Anniversaries (2015)

Listen (2012) Materials: Roberts analog radio, earphones, textile + sari scraps, kilim wool, binding. Private Collection.

Secret Knowledge II, (2012). Materials: Inherited books, Persian rug scraps, flax.

Monument (2012). Materials: The artist’s defunct credit cards, chequebooks bound in kimono scraps, wool, wire.

The Book of Debts IV (2014). Performance relic : Jar of ashes from Burning the Books (2012-15) collective performance (Lewes, Foundry Gallery/Phoenix Estate, 2014)

Dance (from The Gifts 1-99, 2010) Materials: The artist’s mother’s shoes, recycled cloth, bias binding, Sufi poetry texts.

Voice and Presence (2011). Materials: Telephone, kilim wool, sari scraps, bias binding, wire, Sufi poetry texts

Bookshelf: books that have influenced or informed my Seven Sisters & Sussex Heritage Coast writer residency and We See You Now/ We Hear You Now projects.