Make a Piano in Spain, 2008

Make a Piano in Spain is a book that documents the evolution of this major public project commissioned by the Wellcome Trust. On the 6th through 10th of May 2008 Nicola Martin, Kerry Howarth and John Newling met 500 people between Euston and St Pancras stations. From each of them they collected a written response to the question, ‘what do you do to make yourself feel better?’ The response was overwhelming, giving the project a narrative that was both revealing and moving. ‘Make a piano in Spain’ is a project that investigates and transforms these responses.
…In John Newling’s project for Wellcome Collection, the artistic and clinical eye are brought together in the composition of a diagnostic question, what do you do to make yourself feel better? As with many of Newling’s artworks the question is conceived as an instrument of cultural investigation, generating research, data, narrative and material practice all at once. Newling’s diagnostic questions are carefully designed to open up new creative spaces, in which our existing diagnostic tools may not be able to provide all the answers. The question for Newling is a form of uncertainty. In questioning we re-negotiate the terms and conditions of our lives; we reflect on past experience and conceive of new possibilities. Newling’s art of diagnosis continues a long aesthetic tradition in its proximity to the time honoured philosophical question, how to live... extracts from the essay A Diagnostic Question: On the Art of the Public Consultation, Dr Jonathan Willett 2008
Make a Piano in Spain. First edition.  

A hard back 'artists book' with beautiful uncoated papers. 283 pages.

Published by the Wellcome Trust. Hard back, 294 pages. Includes a forward by Ken Arnold and a contextual essay by Dr Jonathan Willett.  ISBN- 978- 1- 84129- 079-9.