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25 September 2016

The spines have it

The British Library is the title of a work by Yinka Shonibare, who has come to be known for his trademark use of African fabrics. It's showing in Margate till 30 October.
As you enter Turner Contemporary, you see books to the left of you, books ahead of you, and books to the right of you. Colourful books. Move ahead, and you see the gleam of gold on their spines - the names of immigrants who have enriched British culture and society. They are hard to read  as they flicker against the rich patterning, and many or most will be know to an individual browser - and some spines are nameless.
The pattern placement on the second spine on the right particularly took my fancy -
...wonder what the rest of the fabric is like? What's on show is just a narrow segment of the entire pattern.

Couldn't resist a couple of panoramas -

The camera does inexplicable things to people moving past.

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