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Ian Breakwell has worked for the 363 days of 1973 on the Diary.

Breakwell has, over the last ten years, made a series of preliminary visual and verbal works related to the diary format, preparatory
to making the current work.

The Diary is a synthesis of his preoccupation with the combinations of word and image.

The actual Diary is a leather-bound, two-page-a-day, desk diary of 412 pages, each page measuring 111/2" x 8", and consisting of
handwritten manuscript in six ink colours, juxtaposed and combined
with photo-montage, collage, and hundreds of black & white,
coloured and toned photographs taken with a variety of cameras,
including many taken with the pocket miniature camera which
Breakwell has all the time carried with him.

The content of The Diary:
although The Diary contains recurring documentary elements, the
topical content is minimal.

Neither is The Diary a first person narrative: the elements of
self-analysis are secondary to the outward-looking aspects: observed events, scenarios, visual incidents, conversations, etc.
It is a diary of description, personal observation and interpretation.
It is not intended to be a virtuoso technical display, but uses plain
language to verbally and visually record facets of life lived from day
to day. The visual and verbal content of The Diary reflects the
qualities of this daily life: by turns bizarre, mundane, humourous,
bleak, erotic, perverse, loving, vicious, cunning, stupid, over- whelming, incidental, emotional, absurd, perceptual, sexual, daydream and nightmare etc etc. in any number of combinations.

The motivation behind The Diary is less to make a "magnum opus"
(although that is what it has become), but more to use the traditional diary structure as a continuing aid to increased awareness day and night, without getting too po-faced about it, The raw material of The Diary (manuscript version) is the source for a series of large exhibits in a variety of media: photo-montage, photo-texts, film/slide sequences, tape-recordings, printed editions.

These will form the basis for a series of changing, growing
exhibitions beginning at the Galerie Bama, Paris: April 24 - May 18,
1974. The Angela Flowers Gallery, London: May 28 - June 22, 1974.

At each venue The Diary exhibition will be added to and will breed new aspects, so that by the end of 1974 The Diary will be a comprehensive mixed-media work.