MIKE PARKER - A PRIVATE VIEW

Our three exhibition preview / book launches (1, 2, 3, February 2024) are now fully booked, but the exhibition continues into May 2024.
Open at usual bookshop open times - signed copies of ‘All the Wide Border’ (paperback, published 2024) and special edition exhibition postcards are for sale.

MIKE PARKER - A PRIVATE VIEW: photographs on the border

This is the first time Mike has exhibited his photographs. Secretly he’s a photographer as well as a writer and we felt recognition of this was due, not only of his personal photography being more than a feature of his books, but of its importance in his writing process.

For us, the selection we have made from the many photographs Mike took as he wandered the border hint at an edginess, both metaphorical and literal, a lived tension between Mike’s personal history and narrative and those of the places he came across. His book, All the Wide Border, explores those tensions to the limit. Whilst these photographs can be viewed as visual reminders and prompts that contributed to the complex and mysterious mental and actual twists and turns in the journey of Mike’s book, for us, used to curating the work of photographers, they also represent the reality and the unreality of photography and, in this particular instance demonstrate something of the creative act that is the writing of non-fiction.

Each of these scenes also has a life of its own, with meaning created by day to day habitation, adaptation and expression, unexpectedly appreciated by Mike’s sideways glance.

So as Mike extends to us his particular gift, so might we partially inhabit All the Wide Border, this culmination of years of consideration, enunciation and finally production, based on many miles of hard walking, hard looking, oral and aural gleanings and research, and endless days away from home on solitary journeys through landscapes, mostly beautiful but occasionally alienating.

Diane Bailey, Geoff Young, 2024

MIKE PARKER – GOLYGFA BREIFAT: ffotograffau ar y gororau

Dyma'r tro cyntaf i Mike arddangos ei ffotograffau. Mae Mike, yn dawel bach, yn ffotograffydd yn ogystal ag awdur, a theimlwn fod hyn yn haeddu cydnabyddiaeth. Nid yn unig y mae ei ffotograffiaeth bersonol yn fwy na nodwedd ar ei lyfrau, mae’n rhan bwysig o’i broses ysgrifennu hefyd.

I ni, mae’r detholiad yr ydym wedi’i wneud o’r nifer mawr o luniau a dynnodd Mike wrth iddo grwydro’r Gororau yn awgrymu anesmwythyd, yn drosiadol ac yn llythrennol; mae yna dyndra byw rhwng hanes a naratif personol Mike a rhai o’r mannau y daeth ar eu traws. Mae ei lyfr, All the Wide Border, yn archwilio’r tensiynau hynny i’r eithaf. Er y gellir edrych ar y ffotograffau hyn fel atgofion gweledol ac fel ysgogiadau a gyfrannodd at y troeon meddyliol cymhleth a dirgel a’r troeon go iawn yn nhaith llyfr Mike, i ni, sydd wedi arfer curadu gwaith ffotograffwyr, maen nhw hefyd yn cynrychioli realaeth ac afrealaeth ffotograffiaeth ac, yn yr achos penodol hwn, yn dangos rhywfaint o'r weithred greadigol, sef ysgrifennu ffeithiol.

Mae gan bob un o’r golygfeydd hyn hefyd ei fywyd ei hun, gydag ystyr wedi’i greu gan breswyliad, addasiad a mynegiant o ddydd i ddydd, a werthfawrogir yn annisgwyl gan gipolwg o’r ochr Mike arnyn nhw.

Felly, wrth i Mike estyn i ni ei ddawn arbennig, efallai y byddwn yn rhannol feddiannu All the Wide Border, y penllanw hwn o flynyddoedd o ystyriaeth, cyfleu ac, yn olaf, cynhyrchu, yn seiliedig ar filltiroedd lawer o gerdded caled, craffu’n galed, lloffion llafar a chlywedol ac ymchwil, a dyddiau di-ben-draw oddi cartref ar deithiau unigol trwy dirweddau, yn hardd gan mwyaf ond weithiau'n dieithrio.

Diane Bailey, Geoff Young, 2024

MIKE PARKER – A PRIVATE VIEW: photographs on the border

Acknowledgements
It has been such a pleasure for us to work with Mike Parker over the years. From our very first author event (First Thursday) here in 2011, to the first launch of All the Wide Border, in Y Tabernacl in 2023 and now the launch of the paperback edition with this exhibition, Mike has consistently been a generous and encouraging presence. Thank you Mike.

This is the second occasion when we have worked with Mike Parker’s publisher, Harper North. Always a pleasure.

There have been few exhibitions here in the bookshop or the Ffotogaleri when Ann, (Miscellannea) has not been called on to cut mounts for our shows. Without Ann in the town, the process of putting on exhibitions here would be more costly and less possible to manage – she is always there for the last minute alteration. Thank you Ann.

Also a big thank you to Andy at DSColour Labs, Stockport, for making the prints.

MIKE PARKER – GOLYGFA BREIFAT: ffotograffau ar y gororau

Cydnabyddiaethau
Mae wedi bod yn bleser pur gweithio â Mike Parker dros y blynyddoedd. Ers ein digwyddiad awdur cyntaf un (Dydd Iau Cyntaf) yma yn 2011, i lansiad cyntaf All the Wide Border, yn y Tabernacl yn 2023 a rwan lansiad y clawr meddal efo'r arddangosfa, mae Mike wedi bod yn bresenoldeb hael a brwdfrydig cyson. Diolch, Mike.

Dyma'r ail achlysur i ni gydweithio â chyhoeddwr Mike, Harper North. Bob amser yn bleser.

Ni chafwyd llawer o arddangosfeydd yma yn y siop neu yn Ffotogaleri pan nad oedd angen galw ar Ann (Miscellannea) i dorri mowntiau ar gyfer ein sioeau. Heb Ann yn y dref, byddai'r broses o gynnal arddangosfeydd yn llawer mwy costus ac yn anoddach i'w rheoli - mae hi bob amser ar gael ar gyfer gwneud newidiadau funud olaf. Diolch Ann.

Diolch o galon hefyd i Andy yn DSColour Labs, Stockport, am y gwaith argraffu.