A Secret Heliotropism

Nicola Dale

Origin: Static Issue 05
Content: Text/Images

‘A Secret Heliotropism’ is an artist’s book inspired by a quotation from Walter Benjamin’s “Theses on the Philosophy of History”. The work is a visual analogy for the constantly shifting way in which we understand events in history. Over the course of one year, visual artist Nicola Dale painstakingly cut each of the book’s 320 pages by hand into a leaf pattern. When the work is exhibited, these leaves stretch out from it towards a source of natural sunlight, as though the book and its text were growing and changing in a way which reflects Benjamin’s view of history.

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Contributor:

Nicola Dale is a Manchester based visual artist. Since gaining an MA in Visual Culture in 2005, she has exhibited both in the UK and abroad - most recently at Hessenhuis Museum, Antwerp. Her books are in several collections (including the Tate’s National Archive) and in 2006 she won the Alvaro Beccatini Award at a juried exhibition of artist’s books in Italy. As well as producing solo work and being a member of the Artists’ Books Online collective, she is also one half of Tenneson and Dale: a collaboration specialising in site-specific installations. The main theme of Nicola’s work is the passage of time- with particular reference to authorship, repetition and originality. This is reflected not only in her subject matter, but also in her obsessive working method, which is often incredibly time consuming.

Associated Links:

 www.axisweb.org/artist/nicoladale