ON OUR RADAR

Instructions2LiveBy

An interactive Preston Street Union event invites participants to seek out wise words and helpful hints in fact and fiction.

Leigh Curtis

Preston Street Union is holding an interactive event at Exeter Library on Saturday 28 January. Taking how-to guides and self-help manuals as inspiration, #Instructions2LiveBy will discover wise words and helpful hints in the library collection.

Participants will be guided through the library or can pick up an instruction card and seek out their own way through fact and fiction from cookery to children’s books.

Preston Street Union Instructions To Live By online #InstructionsToLiveBy online

The library event is part of an ongoing project combining random phrases from books and magazines to create new texts which began during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020.

Derived texts were shared online and in the windows of people’s homes.

Hand-written phrases on riso-printed posters have since been displayed at bill-posting sites around the city and have featured in the Exeter Phoenix Platform series, which offers South West artists opportunities to test ideas and new work and develop their practice.

The project has also been featured on Social ARTery, an artist-led community platform.

Preston Street Union Instructions To Live By bill-posting #InstructionsToLiveBy bill-posting

Preston Street Union is an Exeter-based affiliation of artists who make collaborative work.

Formed in 2015, Preston Street Union contributed to Art Week Exeter (now Art Work Exeter) in 2017 and 2018 and performed Serge/Surge, a Royal Albert Memorial Museum commission, the following year.

Anyone may come and go, the second stage of the trade- and migration-themed commission, took place in February 2020.

Subscribe to The Exeter Digest - Exeter Observer's essential free email newsletter

Your personal information will be processed and stored in accordance with our Privacy Policy

#InstructionsToLiveBy is from 10.30am-12.30pm on Saturday 28 January 2023 at Exeter Library.

The event is drop-in: booking is not required.

To find out more visit the Preston Street Union website.

Democracy doesn't work when people don't know who is deciding what on whose behalf and what the costs and consequences of those decisions will be.

Exeter Observer is proving that reader-funded media can deliver the independent public interest journalism our local democracy needs.

Upgrade to a paid Exeter Observer subscription to support our work and get access to exclusive premium content and more.

More stories
Northbrook Swimming Pool campaign demonstration Exeter Guildhall 13 May 2025

Campaigners compel Exeter City Council to reconsider Northbrook pool closure with 2,250-strong resident petition

Pressure on council intensifies after freedom of information request responses confirm £3.5 million budget cuts included potentially unlawful decision to close swimming pool without public consultation or impact assessment.

Wild camping on Dartmoor

Supreme Court rejects Dartmoor landowners’ attempt to prevent wild camping on their land

Judges unanimously dismiss appeal by Alexander and Diana Darwall against 2023 ruling upholding Dartmoor Commons Act as campaigners call for enhanced public rights to access nature pledged by Labour when still in opposition.

Child on park bench

Ofsted finds Devon County Council children’s services remain “inadequate” with rating unchanged since 2020

Inspection report highlights “serious weaknesses” that are “leaving children at risk of harm” as failings echo poor Special Educational Needs & Disabilities provision.

Mid Devon District Council headquarters at Phoenix House in Tiverton

Mid Devon District Council mischarged 2,865 social housing tenants £15.5 million in rent over twenty years

Housing regulator identifies “serious failings” in application of rent standard as council discovers dozens of evictions in which “rent arrears were the sole, or contributory factor”.

Dartmoor wildfire on 5 May 2025, photo by Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service

Dartmoor National Park warns of continued high fire risk after wildfire destroys 1,230 acres of moorland

Devon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service took nearly 24 hours to extinguish bank holiday weekend blaze that followed warning of uncontrolled moorland fire risk.

Former Firezza in Sidwell Street to become adult gaming centre

24 hour year-round Sidwell Street “adult gaming centre” allowed at appeal

Planning inspector finds no evidence that “increase in crime and disorder” or “serious detrimental impacts on the health of local residents” would result from change of use from restaurant and takeaway unit.