| Title | Fragment by Fragment |
| Subtitle | Signs of the peat bog disperse into the wind |
| Artist / Creator | Lin Charlston |
| Place of Publication | Shropshire, United Kingdom |
| Publication Date | 2011 |
| Image Process | Altered photograph |
| Structure / Binding | Hand-stitched, single-section codex |
| Medium / Materials | Archival digital pigment inks |
| Paper Stock | Gerstaecker 125 gsm, acid-free tissue |
| Number of Pages | 28 pages |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 10.52 x 6 x 0.2 inches |
| Edition Size | Edition of 50 |
| Signed & Numbered | Yes |
Peat bogs are marshy habitats endangered by human activity and climate change. The ancient underlying soils are in the early stages of coal formation and provide valuable carbon sinks. Fragment by Fragment tells the story of a peat bog dispersing into the wind following the removal of surface vegetation by a devastating fire. The narrative unfolds visually as a concrete poem written in my own semi-legible font “peatbog.” I generated the font from sketches of minute peat fragments transformed into an obscure written language—or signs from the peat bog. The materials of the book embody the contrasting sensations of the peat bog for the reader. The rich black wrap, the peat itself and the green-tissue interleaving, the fragile surface vegetation.
Artist Bio
The "creative leap" from head of science faculty to book artist occurred in 2000. Lin Charlston gained an MA in Book Arts with Distinction at Camberwell College of Arts in London and today her artist's books are held in major public collections including Tate Britain, The National Art Library at V&A, Yale Center for British Art, The Art Institute of Chicago and UCLA. Charlston forfeits the luxurious aesthetic object using the artist's book as a platform for serious thought. Questioning rather than asserting, she delivers a whole-book experience that provokes debate about the communication of science, its applications and consequences. Charlston's interdisciplinary background and her interest in eco-feminism are evident throughout her work in which objectivity vies with subjectivity and speculative inter-subjectivity. Recent work investigates the fragile relationship between people and plants. Major influences have been the simplicity of the Coracle Press publications and the inventiveness of artists like Xu Bing.