Abstract

Lost in Transit / Nowhere so Foreign, which consisted of photo-text panels, photographs and an artist’s book, was the outcome of a six month residency undertaken by Lock, aboard P&O’s North Sea Ferry fleet. The project was commissioned by Quay Art Gallery, Hull, UK and funded by Arts Council England as part of the nationwide UK Year of the Artist programme. Lock’s residency and subsequent work addressed the experience of mass transit and in particular, the way in which this was shaped by the spaces through which passengers passed while in transit. Photographs and image-text pieces dealt with the topographies, the psychological impact and cultural significance of transit spaces. The work ultimately posited the notion that far from representing the voids, ’non-places’ or ‘parentheses’ that are often used to characterise transit spaces, these sites are in fact richly complex and alien, constituting a foreign domain in their own right, whose design creates curious and often nonsensical relationships with the world that surrounds them. After an exhibition of work in progress at Quay Art Gallery, Hull, UK (22,05,01 – 07,06,01), The 20-21 Gallery show (18,12,01 – 9,03,02) marked the completion of the residency and work arising from it. The work appeared in a number of regional newspapers and arts magazines (Yorkshire Post, ArtScene-where the artist was profiled) and was featured in the official ACE publication celebrating the Year of the Artist, Arts Council England, 2002 (ISBN 0728708922). Work from this project has been reproduced in Ball and Naylor, Form Follows Idea, Black Dog, 2005 (ISBN 1904772218).