The Sausage Atlas By Andrew Towse and Anne-Marie Atkinson
Andrew at our regular lunch spot, near the Pyramid of Arts studio. Photograph by Jonathan Turner.
About Us Andrew Towse is an artist with a learning disability interested in photography. Anne-Marie Atkinson is an artist interested in collaboration and space. Together, we work under the name D4. We began working together two days per week in May 2015, supported by Leeds-based organisation Pyramid of Arts. Since then, we have developed a number of contemporary art projects for commissions and personal exploration, and have exhibited or presented our work in Leeds, Batley, Manchester, and Hull. Using the tools of photography and digital media, our work oscillates between the abstract and the vernacular, using layering, block colour, distortion, and generative processes to create curious pieces that rearrange reality.
The Project The Sausage Atlas represents our largest project, consisting of over 230 images of unique sausage sandwiches consumed by Andrew over a period of 3 years. The project is ongoing and unending. In July 2017 the project received at ÂŁ15,000 grant from Leeds2023, the initiative from Leeds City Council to develop a new city-wide cultural offer. The grant has allowed us to present (almost) the entire collection of images in bespoke cube frames. The project, in its current form, is in exhibition at Kirkgate Market during the BEYOND Festival of Learning Disability and the Arts in Leeds, July 2018. In the first week of the festival all 20 of the small cubes plus a 1m cube will be installed together. In the second week of the festival we will be delivering the smaller cubes to the cafĂŠs around Leeds and Morley where Andrew has photographed sausage sandwiches.
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The Cafés Shake, Latte & Roll, 2A Church St, Morley, LS27 8LY Sandwich Corner, 20 Church St, Morley, LS27 8LU The Sandwich Shop, 53 Queen St, Morley, LS27 8EB Sugar Kingz, 1C Albion St, Morley, LS27 8DT Queen Cafe Bistro, 4D Albion St, Morley, LS27 8DT Eric’s Place, 97 Queen St, Morley, LS27 8DW Sue’s Kitchen, 96 Queen St, Morley, LS27 9EB The Arch Café, 15 Mark Ln, Leeds, LS2 8JA Hepworth’s Delicatessen, 21 Thorntons Arcade, Lands Ln, Leeds, LS1 6LQ Olympic Coffee House, 6 New Markes St, Leeds, LS1 6DG Brunch Café, Row G, 235/255, Kirkgate Market, Leeds, LS2 7HJ The Original German Sausage, 34 George St, Leeds, LS2 7HY Bellisimo, 21 East Parade, Leeds, LS1 2BH (not pictured) Riveresque, 15 Bridge End, Leeds, LS1 7HG San Co. Co, 12 New Briggate, Leeds, LS1 6NU Roots and Fruits, 10-11 Grand Arcade, Leeds LS1 6PG The Cuthbert Brodrick, 99 Portland Cres, Leeds, LS1 3HJ (not pictured) Deli Kitchen, 55 Great George St, Leeds, LS1 3BB (not pictured) GG’s, 31A Great George St, Leeds, LS1 3BB (closed, not pictured) Slips Deli, 121A Cardigan Rd, Leeds, LS6 1LU Bitezilla, 1Whitehall Pl, Leeds, LS12 1AA Ben’s Kitchen, 43 Holbeck Lane, Leeds, LS11 9UL Meccaway Sandwich Shop, 109 Chapeltown Rd, LS7 3HY (closed, not pictured) Church of God of Prophecy, 196 Chapeltown Rd, Leeds, LS7 4HZ (not pictured)
Shake, Latte & Roll 2A Church St, Morley, LS27 8LY
Sandwich Corner 20 Church St, Morley, Leeds LS27 8LU
The Sandwich Shop 53 Queen St, Morley, LS27 8EB
Sugar Kingz 1c Albion St, Morley, LS27 8DT
Queen Cafe Bistro 4d Albion St, Morley, LS27 8DT
Eric’s Place 97 Queen St, Morley, LS27 8DW
Sue’s Kichen 96 Queen St, Morley, LS27 9EB
The Arch Cafe 15 Mark Lane, Leeds, LS2 8JA
Hepworth’s Delicatessen 21 Thorntons Arcade, Lands Lane, Leeds LS1 6LQ
Olympic Coffee House 6 New Markes St, Leeds, LS1 6DG
Brunch Cafe Row G, 235/255, Kirkgate Market, Leeds, LS2 7HJ
The Original German Sausage 34 George St, Leeds, LS2 7HY
Riveresque 15 Bridge End, Leeds, LS1 7HG
San Co. Co 12 New Briggate, Leeds, LS1 6NU
Roots and Fruits 10-11 Grand Arcade, Leeds, LS1 6PG
Slips Deli 121a Cardigan Rd, Leeds, LS6 1LU
Bitezilla 1Whitehall Pl, Leeds, LS12 1AA
Ben’s Kitchen 43 Holbeck La, Leeds LS11 9UL
This project started as a joke. When Andrew and I were first getting to know each other, before we began our collaborative work together, someone told me that each lunchtime we were to head out of the studio to get him a sausage sandwich from the local café. It’s his favourite food, and building a reliable framework through which to orientate yourself is a way for people who support people with learning disabilities to create a safe environment where creativity and self-determination can flourish. Noting both the sausage sandwich’s reappearance in our working days and their uniformity, as well as Andrew’s enthusiasm for them, I made the joke that he should photograph each one. A few weeks later, on our first working day together, which we spent getting to know each other and our artistic approaches, while I was simply eager to tuck into my lunch after a busy morning, I spotted Andrew carefully removing his sausage sandwich from the white paper bag, arranging it, and taking the shot. I was jolted back to my joke, a flippant comment that I’d forgotten about as soon as I’d said it, and realised that Andrew had not only remembered, but had immediately taken the opportunity to begin developing a project that reflected his true passions. He continued like this as our work went on. The project was instantly significant, because I am vegan and don’t like to touch meat, or even look at it really. This meant that Andrew had to take the lead, as he couldn’t easily delegate to me if he was ever feeling low in confidence in
his abilities. This was a project where he retained full ownership, making it an important project to the discourse surrounding learning disability and power. Over time, we have varied the aesthetic approach in response to other projects we are working on, for example through use of particular colours or props. In this way, this playful documentation provides a record of our entire collaborative history. Every day we work together, another sausage sandwich is added to the collection. Andrew also began adding photographs of sausage sandwiches he ate at times when we weren’t working together. The result is an open archive of over 230 unique sausage sandwiches, all photographed and consumed (in that order) by Andrew, in a range of styles, locations, and image quality (depending on the available camera). The grant from Leeds2023 allowed us to think about where the project could seriously go. Rather than making new work or developing what Andrew was already doing in terms of the photography, we chose to focus on how to present the existing, and still growing, archive. In our other projects, we have utilised physical and digital layering, photomontage, scannergrams and made ghostly abstract forms from hundreds of images. These experiments compress multiple perspectives into a single frame, destabilising the privileged viewpoint usually associated with photography, and allow us to see ‘through’ time, asking the viewer to be conscious of the workings of their perception as well as inviting
Sausage Sandwiches Through Space & Time immersion. These approaches are a metaphor for the wider concern of inclusive and collaborative arts to destabilise the exclusionary practices of the art-world. Attitudinal, financial, and physical barriers prevent artists with learning disabilities from being taken seriously as artists, while also ensuring, through lack of diversity, a very limited range of artists and artworks that achieve cultural value and are available for public consideration and enjoyment. By presenting the sausage sandwich archive in bespoke cube frames, we have echoed the process of creating photomontage. Several sausage sandwiches can be seen at once in each cube, but their date and location of consumption is not revealed. When the cubes are all installed together, we consume the entire archive simultaneously, traversing space and time or otherwise occupying multiple places and times at once, while also being aware that the project is not finished, may
never be finished, still expanding and growing, amorphous and floating even as we occupy it. With access to 3 years worth of images, the banality of the sausage sandwich takes on a new monumentalism, and the 1m squared images throw-off our sense of scale and offer an experience of the absurd. The function of the archive is exploded as it reveals its inner workings, the space between images being as significant as the images themselves, and the relationship between images and between image and viewer constituting the material of collective cultural experience. Taken as a whole, the project askes: Whose perspective? Whose time?
This project started as a joke, and it didn’t end but continued as a meditation on the politics of space and time and what can be gained when we tear into our limits and reveal the richness of diverse artistic visions. Anne-Marie Atkinson, July 2018