Sentimental Journey
by John X Berger
'Sentimental Journey' was one of three works in an exhibition held at the Angel Row Gallery, Nottingham in May 1992. The exhibition, which also included works entitled respectively 'The Lady Abercrombie' and 'Lloyds' List', had the overall title, 'Ninety-Two', was produced to mark of the establishment of a single European market later in that year. I wished to make a critique of the concept of unification in the general belief that a project of unification is invariably one which protests an imaginary homogenity in the face of difference; I perceived the case of the single European market to be one which gave priority almost exclusively to financial economies while virtually deferring cultural economies in the name of nationhood, overlooking for example the likelihood that the peoples of East Anglia had more in common with those of the Netherlands in the end than with those of the Hebrides. The primary motif of 'Ninety-Two' is that of a journey, or translation, something which crosses boundaries, whether they be geographic, cultural, linguistic or formal. 'Sentimental Journey' took its title and its point of departure from the 1768 novel by Laurence Sterne, based on his trip of seven months in France and Italy. It is made of four parts
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