Caroline McKay Art

80 Days along the Silk Road - a journey

In 2016 I travelled from Istanbul in Turkey to Xian in China along one of the overland routes of the legendary Silk Road. From there I journeyed to Beijing and then onto Shanghai and Southern China.

My work is about mapping the small things of daily life or documenting my immediate environment. In my work I celebrate the joy of finding and recording objects from the everyday – these are what I believe make up life and make life enjoyable. Travelling in this region enabled me to discover lots of new, interesting and unusual objects– from a bronze bust of a warlord to a pine cone.

In this series, I’ve tried to document my personal journey through using a series of collaged etchings of “souvenirs” – small objects that I found in modern Central Asia and China that for me still retained vestiges of the old caravanserai routes through the landscape, or epitomised the modernising lands that I passed through.

Silk Road Souvenirs are printed on Hahnemuhle paper, cut out and sewn onto Kent Cartridge paper. Each one is unique and are sold unframed. All others are printed direct onto Hahnemuhle paper and are in editions of 10.