...is a set of ten postcard-sized oracle cards alluding to
the lore and landscape of Lewis and Stornoway.
The deck is a hypersigil – a commonplace of visual poems,
fragments of stories, ritual actions, pockets and moving
parts. Each card is a meeting place – between reader/user
and object; between place, memory and imagination –
playfully navigating ideas of past, present and future. Part
divination, part activity-pack for the journey home.
Inspiration came from stories of Stornoway and Lewis found
in the Tobar an Dualchais/ Kist o Riches archive: anecdotes
of lead hearts crafted and used as charms to bring people
together, or break them apart. Stories and spells are
themselves souvenirs after a fashion – showing what’s kept
(or what’s left) of our actions and desires. Echoes of old
travel guidebooks (Black’s Guide to Scotland 1840), with
pockets and pull-outs of maps, timetables and hotel
listings. Childhood holiday magazines, with small toys or
packs of stickers attached – cards, puzzles, little things
to unwrap and assemble. Memories of village newsagents.
Informed by the experience of not being able to go to Lewis
(for now), 2020-21, some references were drawn from
correspondence between artists and curators as the project
developed remotely.
