Five Hundred & Seventy One Pounds Eighty
2018-21, mixed media
Commencing in her first semester at university, this bus-ticket-tapestry represents not only her journey commuting into the city but also the journey of Pemberton’s practice over the preceding three years. What naively began as the recording of her surroundings or simply the song she was listening to as she boarded the bus, developed into the documentation of significant news and finally the coronavirus pandemic.
Functioning as a time capsule, endless amounts of time and attention has been spent with and on this piece, respectively, and its visual aesthetics transformed as her practice did so. Be it scribbling sounds, embroidering album covers, recording the page number of the book she was reading to documenting how late the bus was or the prominent headlines of the day. Using the humble bus ticket, the mundanity of the everyday is juxtaposed by the value of craft and contemplation.
Molly Pemberton 