A thread

I purchased Teju Cole's new photobook, Fernweh, in March 2020-it arrived as an antidote of sorts to my endlessly-at-home condition.1 I spent time with the photographs of idyllic open spaces and Swiss views; sheaths of fabric and coverings that curtain views and windows. I was transported, and I considered the potential for travel via photographs that depict other worlds. In a blog post on his publisher's website, Cole reflects on the importance of the photobook as an artform, in that it facilitates art viewing in the private spaces of one's house, to be returned to many times, and that time spent with a photobook works as a 'relatively brief immersion provisionally repairs the world'.2 I have an affinity for art forms best enjoyed in solitude, over extended periods or through repeated viewings: essays, photobooks, music albums, novels, poems and long-form artwork made for web-based engagement. Not only have these easily dispersed forms of art been a way to reorient a studio practice in a period of physical isolation, they have been a brief immersion from the world. I can turn to the photographic image or written word as an escape, of sorts, from a localised containment that the pandemic presents.