PARCHED by Alastair S Macdonald
12x A5 cards, Digitally printed, Rubber band bound, 2021
“Water is increasingly being contested, commoditised and contaminated. Record heatwaves and devastating floods and fires are being experienced due to global climate change. Crossing Glasgow on foot in 2021 during the warm dry second summer of Covid-19, the city’s surviving historical, once-burbling, but now waterless drinking fountains took on a particularly symbolic potency. ‘Parched’, is a recently completed (summer 2021) self-published work, comprising a limited edition (50) set of 12 double-sided B5 postcards (176 mm x 250mm on 400 gsm FSC card) as a response to current environmental issues and to coincide with COP 26 in Glasgow 2021. Together the cards provide brief insights into aspects of Glasgow life during the mid-C19th to the early C20th connected to water, wells and drinking fountains. The ‘overview’ card contains miniature images of each of the 11 selected fountains, plus the title ‘parched’ on the obverse, with text summarising the history of Glasgow’s wells and fountains on the reverse. Each of the other 11 cards contains an original photo, taken by the author, of one of Glasgow’s fountains, printed in sepia and set in a blue water pattern on the obverse, with a few lines of historical interest relevant to that fountain on the reverse.”
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