The Hyman Collection includes the installation of Notes from Home (2000 -2003) comprising shelves with the following artist's books: Gifts from the Cat; Making Cakes; Pete's Food and Flowers; Super Snacks; and The Rise and Fall of Father Christmas.
Notes From Home by Anna Fox is a set of intimate works produced in a series of artists' books, designed and made by Riikka Kassinen. The work started when Anna Fox found herself immersed back into village life in Shelborne in Hampshire after leaving London in 1999. Once again she turned the camera on herself and her immediate family and started to closely document the domestic activities that were happening in her new home. Each series of photographs form short stories about very simple activities - such as baking cakes and biscuits.
Fox has explained:
'I moved back to the area where I grew up, and found myself immediately surrounded by village life. I started to look more closely at the domestic life going on in our new house, and began to construct photo stories about these very simple activities. Each story has its own title and was made in collaboration with another member of the household.'
The work has been constructed as an installation; a series of hand made concertina books displayed on shelves resembling shelves from a domestic interior. Each book contains a series of photographs from the domestic interior separately titled as individual narratives: Gifts from the Cat; Making Cakes; Pete's Food and Flowers; Super Snacks; and The Rise and Fall of Father Christmas.
Rural life has become one of the fundamental subjects of Anna Fox's work over the last 30 years. Born in Hampshire and growing up there her work reflects a keen interest in revealing aspects of country life in Southern England that are usually ignored by photographers.
Making Cakes is collaboration between Anna and her son Louis and shows a variety of decorative themed cakes. The Rise and Fall of Father Christmas records the life size model of Father Christmas her son Felix made for the village art competition. Pete's Food & Flowers documents the strange and extraordinary range of meals made by Pete, who lodged in the house, and records the wild flowers he picked every day. Supersnacks are a series of self-portraits. Gifts from the Cats shows a record of all the dead animals the cats brought into the house as presents.
VIDEO OF ANNA FOX DISCUSSING THE SERIES
