. If I could almost remain entirely still, like one of the rare monoliths in this landscape, I may finally find myself moving. I was in a state of static panic – the plea for an airlift out of an embodiment had become frenzied. “Down there” the onslaught of micro-instructions just got too intense. AndContinue reading “‘My Frontier’”
Author Archives: John B Ledger
Out of time/into time
On the first day of trying to make the ascent I didn’t even get out of the car. But there was enough time to stare out the window at the towering blackened slopes of Longdendale. to somehow see my life reflected. A story lyrically chaptered by this ascent – through the leafy foothills, the barrenContinue reading “Out of time/into time”
Escaping the weekend carnage
My experience of Mental illness has been of being stuck in a space with your own thoughts about yourself, self-consumed thoughts, swirling around and around with fluctuating ferocity. The words ‘self-consumed’ will likely produce little sympathy, yet all of my writings, all of my doings have been saying one thing, ‘help, I want to escape this’, overContinue reading “Escaping the weekend carnage”
Submerged utopias of impossible escape
I can’t have been to this specific spot for over 20 years. Possibly not since my doings were still determined by my parents, and before walking up to ‘the Tops’ became more of a wish for transcendence. In my 20s I’d always stick to the roads which cut through this landscape, because I wanted toContinue reading “Submerged utopias of impossible escape”
One day…
I’m back in the same spot, the hills that separate the urban spaces of Yorkshire and the North West. I made a bold admission the night previous: I told social media that I had lived with a mental illness for 20 years. This kind of thing makes my many social masks turn inwards and scowl,Continue reading “One day…”
Anorexia and the moors
I did not know how to be a body down there in the towns. I didn’t know how to be flesh. In my younger adult years my guts were saying “take me to the moors, take me to the moors”. It was compulsive thought. Perhaps it was put in my head by words of theContinue reading “Anorexia and the moors”
“This world that we imagine in this room might be used to gain access to other rooms, Other worlds, previously unimaginable.”
“Without examples, without modelsI began to believe voices in my head, That I am a freak, that I am broken, That there is something wrong with me, That I will never lovable. Years later, I find the courage to admit that I am transgender, And that does not mean that I am unlovable. This world that we imagine in this room MightContinue reading ““This world that we imagine in this room might be used to gain access to other rooms, Other worlds, previously unimaginable.””
‘Back to Normalism’ at Fossgate Social
One half of ‘Back to Normalism’ is at the Fossgate Social, on Fossgate in York. It consists of smaller scale works. However these works are of no less importance than my larger works.
photos from preview of ‘Back to Normalism’
These are photographs from the preview of Back to Normalism, my most recent exhibition, which included a spoken word/sonic performance collaboration with myself and Adam Denton. Thanks to Mark Tighe for taking these pictures, which I feel perfectly capture the shows essence. Also, I did this quite lengthy interview for Charles Hutchinson press prior toContinue reading “photos from preview of ‘Back to Normalism’”
Photos from the Lockdown year
I recently rediscovered photographs from late 2020 early 2021, a time that already feels foreign, even as still try to adopt to the ‘back to normal’ culture. I had a studio in my home town at the time, and the area, already a semi-forgotten part of town, felt like the edge of the world duringContinue reading “Photos from the Lockdown year”
John B Ledger 