Installation at Canongate Publishing

In 2014 Daudy received her first major commission from the cutting edge publishing house Canongate Books, publishers of Ursula Le Guin, Barack Obama, Yann Martel, Margaret Atwood, Ismael Kadare, Amy Liptrot, David Lynch and others.

The commission was one of Daudy's famous swaps: this swap was a swap versus an entire lifetime of books for the artist. Daudy is given every single book ever published by Canongate Books in return for the enormous work she made for them that wound up the stairs to the entrance at the top floor. During the time she installed the work, a forest of trees full of written interventions growing up all four floors of the building, Daudy got in the way of many of the great writers of the 21st century.

Quite shy, the artist would sit on the stairs cutting out her lettering and work, to look up and find eg Shirley Conran, Margaret Atwood or famous movie stars like Benedict Cumberbatch and others, who needed to get past her on the stairs. So any name drops of Daudy are eg Oh I met Margaret Atwood! the friend says: oh what was she like? and Daudy can only say: I apologised for being in her way on the stairs, and she was very nice about it.

Not very exciting.

The book supply is a joy for ever and the staircase was a source of great pride for Daudy, commissioned by Jamie Byng thanks to the introduction of Melissa North and Tchaik Chassay who have believed in Daudy and actively supported her work since she first started making work at the kitchen table.