The Park Bench Reader is an ongoing performance series by the artist Bram Thomas Arnold. Regular Sunday afternoons find Bram reading a classic work of English Literature to passing members of the public. In 1840 Joseph Strutt opened England's first public park, the decade went on to give voice to a whole generation of England's finest authors. The Park Bench Reader seeks to draw these two seemingly unassociated events together again and question the pace of life in a society ever racing forward.
The Park Bench Reader: An English Library in New York. Conflux 2008. C.F.A. LaGuardia Place, New York City.Bram Thomas Arnold will curate a library of literature that has been culled from the charity shops of his Hackney stomping ground in London.This ‘English’ literature library will be shipped to New York and act as a center for the quiet activism of reading: a protest against the ongoing and ever increasing pace of a society that is beginning to collapse under its own weight. The gentle intervention seeks to reignite community and individual imagination through an engagement with the very stories that took this civilization to its current peak.Coordinated readings will take place on prominent benches at set hours across the days of the festival, and the library,will act as a promotion tool for prearranged readings as well as an opportunity for volunteers to take the novels on to the streets themselves.
On the 6th June 2008 7 benches on the Prince of Wales pier were occupied by readers who read from their favourite novels. The opening sections of
Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban;
Jane Ayre by Charlotte Bronte;
Cat's Eyes by Margaret Atwood;
The Wanderer by Alain Fournier;
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky;
The Catcher in the Rye by J. d. Salinger;
and Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami could be heard drifting out over the harbour in the windy sun of a friday afternoon in June. Many thanks to the readers and to Live Art Falmouth for their help in organising the event. Read the AN review of the event here http://interface.a-n.co.uk/interface/reviews/single/442103
The Park Bench Reader. Volume 7. Sunday 6th April. 2pm.
Read: D. H. Lawrence's 'The rainbow'
Start: "The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire."
End: "But he despised the net result in him of the experience - he despised it deeply and bitterly."
Notes. Bitterly cold, snow on ground. Second outing for the rainbow. Enjoyed.
The Park Bench Reader. Volume 7. Sunday 23rd March. 2pm.
Read. Thomas Hardy's 'The mayor of casterbridge'
Start: -
End: -
Notes. Another unexpected cancellation. Unexpected Easter Sunday based entertainment, and 2 disappointed listeners who had a nice walk. Hot cross buns.
The Park Bench Reader. Volume 6. Sunday 16th March. 2pm.
Read: Charles Dicken's 'Dombey & Son'
Start: -
End: -
Notes. Due to adverse weather conditions, and the gates of St. Pauls Churchyard being locked on a Sunday Volume 6 was unexpectedly suspended. The introduction to the novel was read in silence in a nearby cafe, yielding some useful information about the novels of 1848 in particular and the 1840's as a pinnacle decade in general. Blueberry muffin and a latte.
The Park Bench Reader. Volume 5. Sunday 2nd March. 2pm.
Read: D. H. Lawrence's 'The rainbow'.
Start: "The Brangwens had lived for generations on the Marsh Farm, in the meadows where the Erewash twisted sluggishly through alder trees, separating Derbyshire from Nottinghamshire."
End: "In the hotel where the young men took lunch, were two girls, and the parties struck up a friendship."
Notes. Fresh mud on clean shoes, sunshine puddles and violins. 2 listeners, chocolate hobnobs.
The Park Bench Reader. Volume 4 (for 6). Tuesday 26th February. 3pm. Part of http://whippitnights.blogspot.com
Read: The works of Thomas Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge; Jude the obscure; Far from the madding crowd; The Woodlanders; Under the greenwood tree; A pair of blue eyes.
6 different readers simultaneously reading from 6 different Hardy novels on the Dartington Estate, Dartington College of Art.
Notes. 1 German reader, 1 American, 1 incident involving permission, 6 different types of biscuit, 6 opportunities.
