The Book of Lies

The Book of Lies is the name of a journal left by Pike Ward - an English fish merchant proclaimed as ‘The Best Known Man in Iceland' in the early twentieth century, but largely forgotten soon after.

In 2019, Chris Paul Daniels, an Artist and Filmmaker based in Manchester, England, travelled across Iceland to follow Ward's journeys, documenting the travels onto analogue film. Daniels takes The Book of Lies as a starting point to investigate the photographic scrapbooks and archive of Ward, but also his own filmic observations - matching the documentations of Iceland by two Englishmen a century apart; interrogating the authority of the images of both as spectators and travellers - rooted in the same landscapes and photo-chemical processes but traversed across time.

This new three screen installation is commissioned by Einkofi Production, and features an original soundtrack by Graham Massey (808 State, Massonix)