The Mechanism

2021

The Mechanism contains a selection of poetry which the artist – Sam Treadaway – wrote when first developing his creative ideas as an artist, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one years old. Although read and discussed with certain friends during these years the poems were eventually filed away and all but forgotten.

Then in 2011, whilst sorting through some possessions, Sam opened an old atlas to discover, tucked within its covers, a number of handwritten pages. Re-discovering and re-reading these poems he became intrigued by conceptual parallels and connections between its verse and artworks he had since created. 

Therefore Sam decided to treat each poem as a score from which to make a graphite drawing. The drawings he proceeded to produce became encoded with semiotic references, both to the original poems as well as to various artworks and projects. The Mechanism monograph is the result of that process: a meditation on one period of life from that of another and an interdisciplinary translation between writing, drawing, and making. 

The Mechanism was first published in 2013, limited to an edition of /13, by Arrow Bookworks. The monograph was dedicated to particular friends, creative collaborators, and supporters with most copies gifted with thanks to these people.

This second impression of The Mechanism was published in 2021, limited to an edition of /78, by Arrow Bookworks. Therefore this is the first instance that The Mechanism has been accessible to a wider audience. It is dedicated to the people who believe in peace and kindness during times of sea-change and who, together, hold the power for collective worldwide transformation.


The Mechanism (Arrow Bookworks, 2021)
Bookwork: 21.5cm, 21.5cm, 1.00cm.
27 pages (8 Poems, 8 Drawings).
Card, cloth, 170 gsm paper.
(ISBN-978-1-5272-8609-2)
Limited edition /78.

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