The Swamp
by Sofia Borges
Photographs: Sofia Borges
Publisher: Mack Books
184 pages
Pictures: 49 colour plates 22 black & white plates
Year: May 2016
ISBN: 9781910164624
Comments: Open spine softcover book with wraparound dust jacket, 21 cm x 26 cm
“Reality as mud as dense as air” reads the spine of Sofia Borges’ book The Swamp, and equally, the series of photographs that she presents is as leaden as it is impenetrable. Spanning a seven-year period, it largely records Borges’ countless visits to natural history museums, zoos, aquariums and research centres, where the artifice of reality became her point of focus. For Borges, displays such as habitat dioramas serve as the ultimate form of representation, where objects have the virtuous task of representing “themselves” – a type, genre or group that is inherently bound to language through layers of history and meaning. As a motionless walrus lies in its plastic Antarctic locale and the beady eye of a fossilised bird catches your glance, what glares back at you from the depths of The Swamp is not the thing itself, but the image, of an image, of an image.
“What I seek are images, which, in their very artifice, are able to present themselves as a problem”, Borges has said. Beyond the comical absurdity of museological spectacles that spawn the living dead, The Swamp takes aim at the notion that images can be “read”. Taking inspiration from the insoluble language of Beckett on the one hand, and the cinematic mind-twists of Lynch on the other, Borges disrupts logical processes of comprehension, offering seemingly random sequences of images, whose monstrous forms and coarse surfaces purposefully assault the senses.
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The Swamp
by Sofia Borges
Photographs: Sofia Borges
Publisher: Mack Books
184 pages
Pictures: 49 colour plates 22 black & white plates
Year: May 2016
ISBN: 9781910164624
Comments: Open spine softcover book with wraparound dust jacket, 21 cm x 26 cm
“Reality as mud as dense as air” reads the spine of Sofia Borges’ book The Swamp, and equally, the series of photographs that she presents is as leaden as it is impenetrable. Spanning a seven-year period, it largely records Borges’ countless visits to natural history museums, zoos, aquariums and research centres, where the artifice of reality became her point of focus. For Borges, displays such as habitat dioramas serve as the ultimate form of representation, where objects have the virtuous task of representing “themselves” – a type, genre or group that is inherently bound to language through layers of history and meaning. As a motionless walrus lies in its plastic Antarctic locale and the beady eye of a fossilised bird catches your glance, what glares back at you from the depths of The Swamp is not the thing itself, but the image, of an image, of an image.
“What I seek are images, which, in their very artifice, are able to present themselves as a problem”, Borges has said. Beyond the comical absurdity of museological spectacles that spawn the living dead, The Swamp takes aim at the notion that images can be “read”. Taking inspiration from the insoluble language of Beckett on the one hand, and the cinematic mind-twists of Lynch on the other, Borges disrupts logical processes of comprehension, offering seemingly random sequences of images, whose monstrous forms and coarse surfaces purposefully assault the senses.
In the press:
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Random selection from the Virtual bookshelf josefchladek.com
The Swamp
by Sofia Borges
Photographs: Sofia Borges
Publisher: Mack Books
184 pages
Pictures: 49 colour plates 22 black & white plates
Year: May 2016
ISBN: 9781910164624
Comments: Open spine softcover book with wraparound dust jacket, 21 cm x 26 cm
“Reality as mud as dense as air” reads the spine of Sofia Borges’ book The Swamp, and equally, the series of photographs that she presents is as leaden as it is impenetrable. Spanning a seven-year period, it largely records Borges’ countless visits to natural history museums, zoos, aquariums and research centres, where the artifice of reality became her point of focus. For Borges, displays such as habitat dioramas serve as the ultimate form of representation, where objects have the virtuous task of representing “themselves” – a type, genre or group that is inherently bound to language through layers of history and meaning. As a motionless walrus lies in its plastic Antarctic locale and the beady eye of a fossilised bird catches your glance, what glares back at you from the depths of The Swamp is not the thing itself, but the image, of an image, of an image.
“What I seek are images, which, in their very artifice, are able to present themselves as a problem”, Borges has said. Beyond the comical absurdity of museological spectacles that spawn the living dead, The Swamp takes aim at the notion that images can be “read”. Taking inspiration from the insoluble language of Beckett on the one hand, and the cinematic mind-twists of Lynch on the other, Borges disrupts logical processes of comprehension, offering seemingly random sequences of images, whose monstrous forms and coarse surfaces purposefully assault the senses.
In the press:
ZUM - revista de fotografia
Complot Magazine
more books tagged »black and white« | >> see all
-
Chemises
by Malick Sidibé
sold out -
Mister G. (last copy)
by Gilbert Garcin
sold out -
Vienkiemio godos (signed)
by Rimaldas Viksraitis
sold out -
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by Al Vandenberg
sold out -
Lupimaris (with net cover, signed)
by Christian Stemper
sold out -
DEEPER SHADES #04 Vienna (book + print)
by Andreas H. Bitesnich
sold out
more books tagged »Brazilian« | >> see all
-
Rever
by Gabriela Machado
sold out -
A Grande Seca
by Ronald Ansbach
Euro 33 -
Cabanagem
by André Penteado
Euro 29 17.40 -
Sobre Sao Paulo
by Claudia Jaguaribe
Euro 77 -
Photographic Syntax (signed)
by Albarran Cabrera
sold out -
Motobaik
by Christian Rodriguez
Euro 28
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-
What the Living Carry (signed)
by Morgan Ashcom
Euro 40 -
Vida y milagros de Paula P. (signed - last copy)
by Cristina de Middel
Euro 165 -
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by Mårten Lange
Euro 33 -
The First March of Gentlemen (signed - last copy)
by Rafal Milach
sold out -
The First March of Gentlemen (book + print)
by Rafal Milach
sold out
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