1000 Miles Vol. IV

SPECIFICATIONS

  • 5.5" X 8.5"
  • 60 PAGES
  • TRIPLE-STAPLE BINDING
  • LASER PRINTED ON HIGH-QUALITY 32lb PREMIUM PAPER
  • TRANSLUCENT HEAVY-WEIGHT VELLUM COVER WITH EMBOSSED EMBELLISHMENTS ON FRONT AND BACK
  • 31 IMAGE PHOTO-STORY EXCLUSIVE TO THIS ZINE
  • 1 LOOSELEAF GATEFOLD INSERT WITH PROJECT TEXTWORK
  • 1 LOOSELEAF GATEFOLD INSERT WITH ROUTE-MAPS EXCLUSIVE TO THIS ZINE PRINTED IN HIGH-QUALITY COLOR
  • 1 FUJI NORITSU COLOR PRINT EXCLUSIVE TO THIS VOLUME PRINTED ON FUJICOLOR CRYSTAL ARCHIVE PAPER HELD TO THE PAGE WITH ARCHIVAL CANSON PHOTO-SQUARES
  • SIGNED, STAMPED AND NUMBERED BY THE ARTIST
  • FIRST EDITION OF 100 + 5 APs ; SPECIAL EDITION OF 10 (DETAILS HERE)

DESCRIPTION

1000 Miles is the culmination of a 100 day performance project Jason Jaworski created in collaboration with MOCAtv where every day he threw a dart at a map of Los Angeles, traced a 10 mile shape and proceeded to traverse its geometry. Dressed in a uniform of all white, each 10 mile journey was documented in a series of images, texts and line paintings. This publication is the fourth of 10 the artist made during the project. Each book represents 100 miles of the 1,000 mile journey.

A ten volume zine set, as well as a dual folio publication involving the project was put out by SSK Press in 2013 and 2014. The original zines themselves were featured in the 2015 edition of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) New Photography exhibition as part of Lele Saveri's The Newsstand installation, as well as being highlighted in the Skira Rizzoli book of the same name.

All editions of the book and series have sold out from SSK Press. 
However, the dual folio edition is still available at Dashwood Books in limited quantities here.

ARTIST TEXT

It was, what my grandfather would call, the hourglass time of day: majority of sun gone, but enough hours to keep working till the sand burns down.

I was walking down Hill Street, passing the several paths of freeway underneath me. From where I was standing I could make out the smallest forms of a face through each windshield in every car: people yawning, laughing, singing, staring, screaming and the occasional person with finger poked into their nose. Traffic moved slowly: an old woman’s hands reaching across a table.

I continued down Hill, eventually reaching Chinatown. No matter what city I’m in, I always seem to inevitably be drawn to its Chinatown. There is always the same lack of spectacular that I seem to crave- the small corridors and alleyways, the windows massaged by hanging clothes drying on a line, the particular odor created only when one has woven enough fish, garbage and soot together, the obligatory stares and the men, cigarette in mouth and hands held behind their backs, leaning in and over to investigate each and every thing that happens to enter their purview. 

I wandered and ambled on, moving through different swaths and sections of stores, down side-streets and above and down staircases. After an extended movement through a small market I came out of a doorway and was somehow on the second floor balcony of a building. A grid of small and large pieces of tarpaulin blue, gray, white and black was my ceiling. I studied its intricacy for a moment and admired its web-like pattern; something that could only have come from a constant reuse and re-appropriation of various colors of string, tape and wire. A calm moment without anyone around and no sound but that of the cars passing by below and the gates from several shops and stores closing. A neon sign pulsed red in the distance; my metronome for the moment to pass the minutes. 

I turned back and entered through the same door I came out of, eventually reaching the ground floor and pushing back on, heading towards downtown, moving down Alpine and turning right onto Alameda; I passed the cabs and their drivers, all lined up on the east and west sides of the street- engines and voices murmuring under a huddle of stray lamppost light. Down Main- passing the Police Station, the restaurants, bars and other odd buildings with either LEASE, RENT, OPEN or CLOSED signs out. Going on further, past 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, to where the street meets Spring and down to 11th where I found a bench and sat down, waiting for the bus. 

I stretched my legs for a moment. Across the street, on a bench just like mine: a lone woman. We exchanged smiles from a distance. Minutes go by and eventually she is greeted by her children. A normal woman made extraordinary to me, for is there such a thing as a woman who is not extraordinary? Every mother who cares for her children, a hero. 

The bus arrived, blurring all vision in front of me, an automated voice dictating: Line 92 Burbank. I got on, greeted the driver with a nod and moved to the back, keeping eye contact with her until it was no longer possible, her person shrinking, getting smaller and smaller as the lights blinked in the bus and other passengers boarded several blocks down- my last glimpse of her being her hand raised to a wave.

The bus pulled on, more people entering and less leaving. I stared forward. No longer looking out the window, but directly ahead, watching all the people sway side to side with the bus’ movement, each person a flame moving in their own random patterns of wind. And I thought of that woman, I thought of her over and over. Her face- as if she’s done everything everyday that was ever asked of her, as if all she had seen were the night, as if the sun were its own particular luxury. And I sat there, thinking of her and inventing an entirely different story for her than the one she is probably living.

The bus pulled on. I got off a few stops before mine and walked the fifteen hundred or so feet it took to get back home- not a cloud in the sky and no star to stare at.

- Jason Jaworski
2013