HYPERGRAPHIA | Chris Friel

£25.00 – £175.00

 

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Available in Standard 1st Edition, Limited Print Edition and a wonderful unique Collector’s Edition package.

Profits from the sale of the book are being donated to the Photo Space Charity.

(Select an edition from the option list to view the product package image. See product images, and details below for more information)

Hypergraphia: a behavioural condition characterised by an intense desire to write

 

“Chris has always had a way of connecting his deepest, most personal experiences to his photography. His creativity is intriguing, often delivering more questions than answers, causing us to pause, reflect on our response and resonance with the images. The works in this book, and also in the videos, are at times disturbing, some are almost frightening, similar to running through the corridors of a nightmare that one can’t wake from.” – Paul Sanders (Former Picture Editor of the Times)

“Photography has always been a way to express inner feeling. Too often, though, an image can be “closed”, hiding emotion and expression, and not allowing the viewer to enter, explore and feel. Chris Friel’s work is the opposite. It is open and honest. It tackles the difficult subject of the mind and mental illness and comes from Chris’s personal experience. Spending time with it gives space for our minds to absorb and placate issues, mental or physical, loneliness, distress, coming to terms with change or loss, or the pressures of life and the world we live in. It delivers hope.” – Peter and Lucy Jones (Trustees of the Photo Space Charity CIO).

“The eminent landscape photographer Chris Friel has turned his gaze to a small empty hospital room which held him for 100 days after his son died. The images are the opposite of landscapes; the viewer is not even sure there is a window, and the faint glimpses of raindrops or a row of faint trees appear and disappear like hallucinations. Friel’s art transubstantiates an empty room into a container of meaning. These images reach out to us.” – Alice Flaherty MD, PhD (Assoc. Prof. of Neurology, Assoc. Prof. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School)

 

About ‘Hypergraphia’

The book has been produced to accompany the Hypergraphia exhibition being held by the Photo Space Charity CIO – see below for further details. The charity uses photography to help people with difficulties in their lives, mental and physical health, loneliness, bereavement, loss of self-esteem.

The work represented in this book is from a sequence of photographs, one every minute, throughout the 100 days Chris spent in hospital in 2018. A total of 150,000 images, all taken and edited with a phone, in a small white room with a single window. Chris chose the title “HYPERGRAPHIA” – a behavioural condition characterised by an intense desire to write – as a reflection on whether shooting over 1000 images a day suggests a similar compulsion, in this case, directed towards visual imagery as opposed to words. The book features 100 images, chronologically sequenced, one from each of the 100 days Chris spent in hospital.

Profits from the sale of the Standard and Print Editions of the book are being donated to the Photo Space Charity CIO.

Contributors to this book, who have waived their fees for the publication include:

  • Chris Friel (Author) – Images
  • Peter and Lucy Jones (Trustees of the Photo Space Charity CIO) – Introduction
  • Paul Sanders (Former Picture Editor of the Times) – Foreword
  • Alice Flaherty MD, PhD (Assoc. Prof. of Neurology, Assoc. Prof. of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School) – Essay
  • Doug Chinnery (Printer) – Fine art prints
  • Joseph Wright (Designer) – Book design and edit
  • JW Editions (Publisher) – Book production, sales and distribution

The full series of the Hypergraphia work can be viewed on Chris’s website (here).

 

Exhibition

The exhibition of Hypergraphia in Ludlow by the Photo Space Charity coincides with Mental Health Awareness Week and the Ludlow Fringe, 13 May to 10 July 2022. It features five thousand images shown as immersive slideshows on screens in venues across the town. The soundtrack is by renowned composer Matthew Herbert. A selection of images has been printed by Doug Chinnery to display in the Photo Space gallery. A 4.7m mosaic of Chris’s 150,000 images is displayed outside the gallery.

The exhibition opened on 13 May 2022 at the Photo Space Charity CIO to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week. It continues to 10 July 2022 as part of the Ludlow Fringe Festival 2022. The work will be shown on screens in several locations in Ludlow including the Photo Space gallery and the Assembly Rooms.

 

 

 

STANDARD EDITION

  • 210 mm x 280 mm, softback, sewn pages
  • 104 pages on fine uncoated paper stock
  • Foreword by Paul Sanders
  • Introduction by Peter and Lucy Jones
  • Essay by Alice Flaherty MD, PhD
  • 1st Edition of 150
  • £25

 

PRINT EDITION

  • Hardback, sewn pages
  • Cloth covered with inset image to front cover
  • Content as per Standard Edition
  • A signed print from the series
    • Unique to this edition
    • Printed by Doug Chinnery on fine art paper with archival ink
    • Approx. 270 mm x 200 mm overall
  • A card slipcase to contain the book and print
  • Limited Edition of 50 (A number will be reserved for the Collector’s Edition)
  • £75

 

COLLECTOR’S EDITION

  • A copy of the Print Edition book (as detailed above)
    • Cover image chosen by you *
  • An additional hand bound and finished book
    • Softback cover with fine uncoated paper stock for pages
    • Each copy is singularly unique, featuring your selection of 24 images *
    • Contained in a hand made sleeve
    • Signed by Chris
    • Made by Joseph Wright
  • Boxed
    • Features your unique cover image choice affixed on the box lid
  • Made to order, Limited Edition of 10
  • £175

 

Released May 2022

Notes:

  • * We will contact you separately to make your selection from a large range of images from the Hypergraphia series. Or, alternatively we can select these for you.
  • Edition sizes will also include a small number of artist proofs, not for sale.

Price shown excludes postage. Postal service costs will be added at checkout. Print and Collector’s Editions will be sent using insured Royal Mail services.

European customers, please note: as the UK is no longer part of the EU, recent changes to taxation laws are affecting the way VAT is collected. As such you may be liable for a separate VAT import charge on any purchases. This is charged by your customs/border agency when a parcel arrives in your country and is something we have no control over and are not responsible for.