A photography and poetry book co-published with SITE Projects.
UK Stockists - Tender Books (sold out), ICA Bookshop, Good Press and Fabrica
Paris Stockist - Yvon Lambert
Edition of 200
PUR bound
54 pp
Introduction by Cairo Clarke
In The Agony of Eros* philosopher Byung- Chul Han considers the threat to love and desire in today’s society of “fetishised individualism and technologically mediated social interaction”. Han argues that we have come to look for love in the inferno of the same, “to be dead to love, is to be dead to thought itself”.
I think then with such a rigorous artistic practice, (exploring online and offline realities in the context of so- cio-dependent relationships to and with technologies) A Sphinx Looking for a Poet beautifully explores this dichotomy by being totally present to love, intimacy and desire as it manifests in the everyday.
The beauty of this collection of stories and poems is that you can feel they were written for Pettigrew as and when she needed them. Through the act of sharing selected writings from this personal practice, Pettigrew reminds us to make an ongoing commitment to love and thought itself.
Each offering opens out into a rich tapestry exploring the sensuality of the everyday. Embodying a sense of spaciousness; stretching and looping time and placeness. A myriad of expressions navigating life, love, grief, sorrow, gratitude unfolding with each environment. A Sphinx looking for a Poet is exactly that. Looking, seeking, all 5 senses spread outward, inward, outward, expression, reflection, breathe in, breathe out. *Byung-Chul Han, The Agony of Eros, 2017 published by MIT Press.