‘Ukrainian/American poet Ilya Kaminsky’s most recent work Deaf Republic was heralded as one of the most original books of 2019.

I See a Silence, his new lyric work for Artangel, combines poetry and prose to form the centrepiece of a soundscape for walking the Ness, produced by acclaimed audio designer Axel Kacoutié with the voices of Neil Brennan, Ilya Kaminsky and Zakia Sewell.

Drawn to the singular ecology of the landscape and the flora and fauna that both preceded and survived decades of weapons research, Kaminsky’s ‘poetry of place’ uncannily evokes a landscape of the imagination. The journey begins at the Bomb Ballistics building, where a panoramic viewing platform looks out across the vast shingle stretching towards the sea.

I was invited to make a dust jacket to wrap around the book of Ilya’s lyric work, I See A Silence (only available from the information centre on Orford Ness.)

I read the poems whilst in the midst of drawing The river that flows nowhere, like a sea. I was overwhelmed by their beauty and held them in thought as I continued to draw.

A Spell Against Bomb Makers

This, officers, is common chickweed,

cousin of a prickly sow thistle.

If you lean your ear

to her stem

you can hear

yourself leaving.

- Ilya Kaminsky

Solidarity with Ukraine.

The image above is the dust jacket when it is fully unfolded, like a map.

(The design for the dust jacket was in collaboration with Joe Hales at Joe Hales Studio)