An Arctic Alphabet

Big news for Valentine's Day! A new version of my award-winning artist’s book How To Say ‘I Love You’ In Greenlandic has just been published by MIEL editions. It is gratifying to see the Arctic Alphabet taking Greenlandic words around the world - to America, Bahrain, Bangkok, Denmark, Spain - and even back to Greenland! 

‘In this beautiful publication Campbell magically manages to evoke the icy North through the warmth and power of the Greenlandic language. Exquisite pochoir prints sit alongside hand-printed type – a perfect marriage between image and text.’ — Emma Stibbon RA

“a book that is not only beautiful but full of joy, love & quiet intensity” — Oliver Clarke, Collinge & Clark Books

Further details, including how to order a copy, can be found here.  

To celebrate the launch, I’ve written a short essay on melting ice and changing language in the arctic which appears on the MIEL blog.

Vantar / Missing

My new print series Vantar / Missing has just come off the press at Centre for Fine Print Research in Bristol.

The series of six diptychs record the transitory fields of mountain snow cover and domestic linen over one winter in Siglufjörður, Iceland. The photographs were taken during a residency at Siglufjörður in Iceland during 2012.

Missing (‘Vantar’ in Icelandic) can refer both to a lost object or person and the experience of loss.

Avalanches caused 193 deaths in Iceland during the twentieth century. It was not until 1999 that avalanche defences were built around the northern town of Siglufjörður. Stóri-boli (Big bull) and Litli-boli (Little bull) wind around the mountains just above the town’s highest buildings. This barely perceptible human intervention divides the town from the mountain wilderness.

Vantar / Missing will be exhibited at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford in May this year.

New Publication!

How To Say ‘I Love You’ In Greenlandic: An Arctic Alphabet will be available in a new edition published by MIEL Editions in January 2014. 

Established in 2010, MIEL ‘publishes poetry, short prose, photographs and prints in forms that bridge the gap between the artist’s book and the trade edition’. Based in Ghent, the team behind MIEL are also responsible for the wonderful 1110 magazine.

Those who found the price of the original artist's book too steep for their pockets will be able to secure their own copy for just €15.

How To Say ‘I Love You’  In Greenlandic will be released in time for Valentine’s Day - but the edition is limited to 175 copies. Pre-order your copy here!

Borrowed Bookshelves 11

The Library of the Lloyd Hotel and Cultural Embassy, Amsterdam

Borrowed Bookshelves 10

Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam/ Amsterdam Public Library, the Netherlands

I See You Everywhere

I am curating two exhibitions to celebrate 25 years of limited editions issued by Zitouna, an imprint run by the artist Roni Gross in New York. Since 1989 Zitouna has produced a limited edition object for Valentine's Day and Hallowe'en every year. The Zitouna projects divide themselves between the themes of love and death, whether it be the mating of toothbrushes or the alchemy of a person's life. For an advance preview of some of the works on show, click here.

The first exhibition, I See You Everywhere: Works From Zitouna Press Over 25 Years, will show at the Arnolfini Reading Room in Bristol from 1 February until 2 March 2014. This will present a survey of works made for Valentine's Day.

The second exhibition, They Cast No Shadows: Works From Zitouna Press Over 25 Years, comprising the Hallowe'en editions, will show at the Special Collections of the Centre for Fine Print Research at the University of the West of England during October 2014.

Hawthornden Fellowship

I will be away until the end of the year on a fellowship at Hawthornden Castle in Scotland. Hawthornden was the birthplace and home of the seventeenth-century poet William Drummond, and since then it has served as retreat to innumerable writers, giving them space to finish old projects and begin new ones.

I will be completing a collection of poems about the Arctic and working on a new song cycle Quujaavaarssuq and the Queen of the Sea. The latter is based on the legendary journey of the Greenlandic hero Quujaavaarssuq to beg forgiveness from the Queen of the Sea, who destroyed the ice as an act of revenge on the humans who pollute her waters.

There is no internet access at Hawthornden, but I will resume posting in January 2014. The new year holds some exciting new projects, including two book publications and the unveiling of Vantar | Missing, an fictional history of avalanches in Iceland.