Sarah Carne - I love my Yugo

In August 2003 Sarah Carne drove her Yugo 45A to Novi Sad in Serbia (former Yugoslavia). The book is a perfect companion and introduction to her ongoing project.

"In 2002 my car, (an inherited Yugo 45), passed its 15th MOT, narrowly and expensively as usual. Realising it didn’t have many years left in it I decided to treat it to one last adventure and attempt a trip back to Yugoslavia, its mother country. Imported in bulk to England in the 1980s Yugos are now virtually extinct in this country. In Eastern Europe, however, they are still ubiquitous, despite the NATO bombing of the factory, and legendary, evoking both national pride and embarrassment in equal measure. Arriving successfully in Serbia (former Yugoslavia) being surrounded by them was bizarre and strangely like a homecoming though mine still provoked much incredulity owing to its RH drive."

Sarah went on to create a video piece about her journey which was shown in the car, which itself has become a work of art through the addition of letraset text on its bodywork.

The book Sarah has made is on one level lighthearted and anecdotal. However it also poses a set of serious questions about how we relate to and anthropomorphise objects in our consumer society and how cultural identities are often fragile and always shifting.

The spareness and lightness of touch with which these two strands are interweaved is a characteristic of Sarahs work. It is one of the most personal and one of the most lovingly hand made of the books created for Floating World. The Letraset element has been done by hand on each of the books as have all the miniature cut out cars. The richness in colour and texture of these elements creates a clever counterpoint to the grainy quality of the fold out map.