Walking Route 1 / Venue 2 – Art in Shops
The Portobello Bookshop, 46 Portobello High Street
4-30 September, 10am-6pm
Where does it all begin? One point.
The point.
The universe.
The Earth.
Life.
The journey.
The book.
The play.
The motion.
The game.
The chance.
One Point is a paper-based installation inspired by the golden age of 19th-century seaside entertainment in Portobello. This era of rollercoasters, variety halls, skating rinks, and helter-skelters celebrated movement, spectacle, and chance. Central to the work is the fascination with arcade tickets, endless paper strips marked ONE POINT/ONE TICKET symbols of possibility and joy. Made from pages of books and vintage amusement tickets, the piece spirals outward like a rollercoaster track or skate trail, reflecting the rhythm of stories and games. It’s a nostalgic landscape of imagination, where memory, motion, and narrative all begin from a single point.
Special thanks to Nobles Amusements for sharing the very last of their prize ticket stock. You can visit Portobello Bookshop to collect a commemorative bookmark, a strip of five tickets, made from this final batch of Nobles Amusements tickets.
Grateful thanks also to The Greatest Showman for the gift of the magical red tickets.
For over twenty years, Jana Middleton has made her home in Portobello, following her studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich.
Her practice spans multiple media and disciplines, integrating monumental sculpture, drawing, and spatial choreography. Through this multidisciplinary approach, Jana explores experience and sensation, developing new perspectives and methodologies within a cohesive thematic framework.
Among her recent achievements is the large-scale visual transformation of a city concert hall in the Czech Republic, where she created a 17-metre monumental floating sculpture. She is currently preparing for her major solo exhibition at the former cubist monumental mill, Gočár Gallery, opening in autumn 2026.
Alongside these ambitious projects, Jana continues to create more intimate works and commissions for local businesses, where her vision and passion for materials remain central.
Contact: jmmartstudio@gmail.com
Instagram: janamiddleton_art