An A5 booklet produced for the exhibition Reserved Listening at Kingcombe Reserve, Dorset in April 2025.

Black and white photo of radio or communication towers against a cloudy sky.

Masts at Rampisham Down, Dorset, UK

Stacks of yellow booklets titled 'Ascension' by Andy Parker on a wooden surface; the inner pages show black and white photos of cables strung between telecoms towers

Ascension, 2025, A5 booklet, unlimited edition

“A few years back, as Winter was drawing in, I thought I’d head south to find Swallows. I skitted across the cooling countryside, drawn by sonar to Portland Harbour. The masts of Rampisham described a 300ft elevation in the distance; a shadow of a shrinking family and a long wave goodbye. Flap, Flap.”

Andy Parker’s short text Ascension begins with recollections of life in a naval city, and takes a journey up and out from the south coast, down into the South Atlantic. Drawing on the relationship between the Transmitting Station at Rampisham Down with the repeater station on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Parker was interested in mirroring the similar journey undertaken by birds migrating between the UK and Africa. With reference to local and global histories (and other invisible hazards), he charts an increasingly rich journey of sound, light, time and birds which draws the reader into a tangled hysteria of invisible, abstract connections.

If you would like a copy of Ascension, please send me a message here

For further information about the exhibition Reserved Listening please visit reserved-listening.co.uk