The Swing

‘The swing has always been there’, with this simple statement Britta Teckentrup starts our journey across time, exploring emotions, relationships and change – but without ever moving from one place. With each double page spread, the organisation between illustration and text varies to create a rhythm that draws the observer in, maintaining interest and engagement. The text itself is minimal and simple and as a result all the more powerful and telling. Occasionally Teckentrup expands to provide a closer connection with a character whether in the moment or as a link across time. Here the images are the heart of this meditation on time and place. Through her colour saturated collage paintings, the artist takes the reader on a visual journey through days, nights, across seasons and all weathers. Their presentation is traditional – almost static with each image placed within the frame of each page. Sometimes they take up a single page; sometimes they move across the spread as vignettes; sometimes they take a whole spread to create the vastness of the night sky or the sea hidden by fog. At the centre is the swing. Through this device – an artefact that does not move – Teckentrup  is able to link many stories. It stands between the land and the sea, its framework encourages you to look up. ‘Isn’t swinging a little bit like flying?’ asks the text. The swing is passive, neutral – a way of introducing a world of emotion and whole range of relationships and ideas. But even a swing, a metal framework so much part of the natural world, is subject to time and change, and cannot exist without the intervention of people. We live in a world where everything is linked and necessary. This not a picture book for the Kinderbox; this is a picture book to be offered to a wider age range, both young people and adults. It is a thoughtful book that could provide the basis for discussion. It is also a book to enjoy for its production, but most of all for Teckentrup’s paintings so full of heart, each and every one asking the viewer to stop, look, think and engage.