STRANGEFIELD, GLASGOW
OLIVIA WILES: STAGING
March 2023

In this pamphlet, the speaker traces the planes of rooms like a chartered surveyor or a snake.

Distributed at the exhibition 'Boys With Books' at Strangefield, Glasgow. The exhibition featured works by Emma Aars, Kate Briggs, CAConrad, Hayley Jane Dawson, Gianni Esporas, Rosie O'Grady, and Kate Timney. A version of the text was read at the exhibition opening event.
The pamphlet is available at Good Press, Glasgow.


See below for an excerpt from the book:

The people: Chloe, Meg C, Meg M, Hannah Kesterton. Poppie.
Gemma. Yasmin and Emily P. Then Laura and Meaghan. Connor
Jenkins and Jack Warrington. Jack Crooke and Isaac Stone. Jack's
mum Vanessa the piano teacher. Rhys Ashton. And Connor --?
Sanders. Morgan - Willis? and Rory - Orrell! Not Jenkins. Never
since such an unchanging constellation of people.


****


The car is in the ditch. The warmest winter feels is next to the
crocodile bin which holds the hot chocolate cups which held the hot
chocolates from the cafe. The car is probably being pulled out of the
ditch now but there is no rush; it is Christmas holidays next week,
and it is snowing outside, or nearly, and it is so warm in the cafe.
The meercats, the animals are by-the-by. Time is long, endless, like
the chinchilla smell in the school room. The giraffes are around the
corner, and there was once an elephant. The car is probably speeding
closer now, but it is little matter for there are only the hot chocolates
in the warm cafe while it is nearly snowing outside.


****


It is a long plastic room, in which everybody sits facing the same
direction. Only slightly above it: empty, empty space and the
occasional star. The stars: balls of fire whose heat and light are
unimaginable in the plastic room, as is the space between one and
the next. Space and space and space. A lifetime of moving and never
getting to anything. Such a thing could lead to madness: but
madness wouldn't exist as it wouldn't have anything to be compared
to. The self would get as diffuse as the planets.
Arms scratched so much the skin gets thinner. Little ruptured flakes
secrete beneath fingernails, thicken into dense walls. In the
bathroom, a button in the wall that says COAT; pushed, a coat
doesn't appear, but a hook materialises from the plastic.