Wish You Were Here is an installation and a collection of postcards presenting images of disaster resulting from extreme weather and other effects of capitalism and imperialism.
The installation – a carousel stocked with the collection – was exhibited briefly outside a local newsagent in the autumn of 2021.
The postcards display scenes of devastation from around the world including warzones, refugee camps, storms and storm damage, floods, droughts, landslips, wildfires and more. Text boxes and stamp boxes on the back carry selections from advertising copy and graphics. What We Think, for example, shows wildfire closing in on seafront or lakefront accommodation. Text on the reverse reads : ‘DIY travel plans mostly appear to work out alright, what you cannot know is that it could have been a whole lot better given advice from a professional. Just one tip can make the world of difference … Surely it makes sense to use a professional to help get it just right.’
The donor postcard stock was bought at the newsagent. The front images are prints of press or other documentary photographs cut from books in my possession and glued on to the card. On the reverse sides, I cut and pasted text and graphics from a leading travel company brochure that had been posted to me following an international rail booking in recent years. I negotiated the use of the carousel, in situ, in preference to purchasing the same.
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