Since 2005, Susan Brind & Jim Harold have been collaborating on an artwork (with the working title, ‘Coffee Letters’). ‘Extract from Seven Coffees, Seven Cities (2005—2015)’ is a selection of four of these ‘coffee letters’ in the form of artists’ pages selected for Volume 5 of ‘The Burning Sand’.

‘Seven Coffees, Seven Cities (2005—2015)’ draws upon the history of letter writing (the first of which can be dated to approximately 500 BC and that more recently includes the C18th conceit of ‘Letters to a Lady’); travel writings (the earliest of which can be traced back to the time of Heroditus in 440 BC); and the ‘rihla’ tradition (which dates from the C14th and which literally translates as a narrative of a voyage in search of knowledge). The letters reference events witnessed since the turn of the 20th-21st Century. As artists’ pages in the journal, they appear in black type on a white ground. The letters, based on first hand experiences and observations, are written by an anonymous ‘I’ – from different years and various international locations – to an unnamed ‘you’ – whose location is unknown. The letters reveal a relationship, by means of reflecting upon historical and current events, and moments shared, that reaches across continents, cultures and time.