Michael Pinchbeck

The Long and Winding Road: A Car History was an ongoing project by Michael Pinchbeck which began in May 2004 when the artist embarked on a journey in a graffiti covered car from Nottingham to Liverpool. The car was packed with 350 mementoes wrapped up in brown paper and string. The project will lasted until 2008 when the car reached its final resting place in the River Mersey.

The mementoes in the car were items that belonged to the artist's brother who died in an accident in 1998. Michael travelled to Liverpool where his brother had been a student, to pack a car with his things. The Long and Winding Road is a memorial by the artist to his brother and has been displayed throughout the UK since it was initially seen as part of Hinterland in 2006.

The artist exhibited the car beneath the arches of Lady Bay Bridge and in the car park of Nottingham Forest Football Club by the River Trent. The objects spilled from the boot. Log books, photo albums and maps of the journey so far littered the dashboard. Audience members were invited, three at a time, to join the artist in the car for a personal car history. The project was documented in a short film by Gareth Taylor.

Pinchbeck is a writer, live artist and performance maker. He studied Theatre and Creative Writing at Lancaster University and co-founded Metro-Boulot-Dodo Theatre Company (MBD) in 1996.  In 2005, he was commissioned by Nottingham Playhouse to write The White Album, which premiered in 2006, toured to LA and won the 2007 Nottingham Creative Business Award for Writing and Publishing. He is currently a lecturer in performance at Chester University.