The past article included a brief mention to these
year´s Photobook award winners DAVID GALJAARD and ANDERS PETERSEN. This post
will revolve around some of the other short-listed finalist´s whose work i
found to be interesting and noteworthy.
The complete list of the 10 short-listed finalist for photobook of the year can be seen here.
The Afronauts. By Christina De Middel.
In 1964, Zambia started a space program that intended to take not only people
to space, but also a cat. In this book Christina invites the viewer to
re-imagine the failed attempt as a successful one. Much in the way Joan
Fontcuberta once created a whole catalogue of fake animal species in his 1987
book Fauna. The lines between fiction and reality are blurred with this
selection of engaging images and texts.
Self-published / London, 2012 / Designed by Ramon Pezzarini / Edited by Laia Abril / 17,5´23,5 cm / 88 pages/ 41 color photographs.
Random Number 11
-"Watching". By N&D
This book is presented as a big brother surveillance catalogue, in fact it opens with an Orwell quote from 1984 "Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious." that follows a CLASSIFIED: OFFICIAL USE ONLY stamp. The book basically consists of 50 black and white frontal portraits of people sleeping in the NY subway, accompanied with a small bar code on the bottom. The presence of the barcodes and the intended poor quality of the images give credit to the idea that the photographs are part of a dark surveillance subject catalogation.
Jeddah Diary. By Olivia
Arthur.
Western views and
perceptions about the Middle East are full of stereotypes and misconceptions.
in this photo-essay the viewer gets the rare chance to observe the day to day
intimacy of the feminine Muslim world. Arthur is invited to document the
private life of these women past the walls of public male controlled space were
they enjoy a greater amount of freedom and autonomy over both their body and
attitude.
Fishbar / London 2012 / Designed by Melanie Mues / 18 X22 cm / 122 pages 63 photographs / Clothbound
History Repeating. By Ori Gersht.
This
book is the first full retrospective of the Israeli Artist known for his photos
and videos of exploding flower arrangements. Gersht works around grand themes such
as life, death and beauty. He approaches landscape photography with an equal
share of emotion, beauty and conceptualization, space as a silent witness to the
atrocities committed by men throughout history. In his beautiful Dutch painting
influenced still life pictures, the viewer is confronted with the idea of the
beauty of creation through destruction.
MFA Publications, 2012 / Designed by Lucinda Hitchcock / 24,8 x 29,5 cm / 262 pages / 150 photographs / hardcover
Based on a true story By David Alan Harvey.
To describe this work as a book would be very inaccurate. "Based on a true
story" is an experiment questioning both the standard conventions of the
photobook format and also questioning the objectivity of documental
photography. The "book" is made out to be spread out on the floor,
pinned to the wall, rearranged and therefore reinterpreted by the viewer at his
own will, drawing his own personal experience from the work.
BurnBook, 2012 / Designed by Bryan Harvey / 19,5 x25,5 cm / 66 pages / 66 photographs / hardcover
She. By Lise
Sarfati.
Referred to as "the anti-family album" this book collects
portraits of a woman, her sister and her two daughters portraying how these
women´s personalities continually shift and mimic one another. The portraits
are intriguing and psychologically disturbing. One can see a strange relation
between both codependence and independence among the subjects.
Twin Palms Publishers, 2012 / 35,6 x 27,9 cm / 120 pages / Clothbound with jacket
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