projects | permanent tourist

In 2008 more than half of the world’s population will be living in cities. But what do these vast, complex urban spaces mean to the people who live, work and study in them? In this age of mass movement, how do we claim presence in a place? We chose four young writers, living in four European cities, to be our ‘permanent tourists’; to explore, challenge and share their urban experiences.

Rejecting the faster, more reliable facility of the email, James Wilkes (London), Eleanor Rees (Liverpool), Ben Borek (Warsaw) and Sandra Huber (Vienna) corresponded by postcard from December 2007 to February 2008, producing a series of sixteen unique ‘postcard poems’. The project was documented on the Permanent Tourist blog and culminated in a live performance at the launch of London Word Festival 2008 and an exhibition of their work at Gramaphone, East London.