Skizzen
Francesca Rendle-Short
Catalogue of Works

A Book of Breathing

Francesca Rendle-Short is writing a set of companion works about growing up in Queensland, Australia, in the 1970s: a novel and a fictional memoir. She is fascinated with all things to do with this time of Queensland’s history—battles of law and order, morals crusading, books and libraries, and why Queensland is thought/said to be different. In Schloss Haldenstein, over a three-month residency, Francesca worked on finishing the manuscript of her novel. She also did a lot of drawing—with pencil, pastels, water, found rocks, snow, gelatine, warm air.

A variation of this exhibition was subsequently shown as Another Book of Breathing at the Australian Association of Writing Programs conference ‘... and is ...’ in November 2007 in Canberra. A packet of Swiss gelatine made an appearance in this exhibition, and it should be noted that Swiss gelatine is beautifully clear; Australian gelatine is a bit muddy by comparison.

Materials: Gelatine leaves from Haldenstein village shop (Dorflada), watercolour pastels from stationery shop in Chur, mini wooden peg from craftshop, Chur, advertising material from Migros supermarket, Chur, pencil, tracing paper from Manor department store in Chur, plates from Kulturatelier, tissue paper from Basel Papermill, Pocket Oxford Dictionary from the Amnesty Bookshop, Cambridge, water, rock from Rhine River, Haldenstein.

email: Francesca.Rendle-Short@canberra.edu.au

To view the works click on the small icons below to see a larger version, or click on the first small icon below to go to the larger version, and from there use the forward arrows to take you through the entire exhibition.