On the 16th of March 2022, Mundus was presented among 6 other photobooks, texts and materials in a very free and unique way in Zoetrope space, in Kypseli, Athens at the Open Day Book selection ‘Inanimate dialogues / Let the things speak’ by Benni Ciappini.
Objects, materials, ruins, inanimate things have the power to communicate a story, both through their physical presence and characteristics, and their representation in art.
They might not be able to speak the way we do, but they hide a power of communication and influence within themselves. Not in a human way, but in their own way, with their own weight and intention. When the human voice meets the material voice, the one found in the streets, in our homes, in nature, a new kind of evocative dialogue starts, bringing us to unexpected results. To start to look at things is to start a new way of looking.
Within the framework of my internship, I had the opportunity to get to know and connect with the photobooks that inhabit ZOETROPE’S library. Books, which are also themselves inanimate things, have the great power of telling us a story, of making us feel something, both through the way they are bound together and through the images and text they are adorned with.
Through this small selection of photobooks, I aim to research the power of inanimate, nonhuman figures, and how through the photographic medium they can bring to life stories and evoke emotions just as much as humans can. It is an invitation to appreciate and start noticing the inner beauty of matter and let it speak its stories.
Book selection: Government of Things by Konstantinos Doumpenidis, Genius Seculi by Michael Almiroudis, Sehnsucht by Alexei Siozov, Pendulum by Stefania Orfanidou, Texas by Dimitris Tsoumplekas, Mundus by Sophia Tolika, Blurry Territory by Georgios Plastok and Alfred Fabricius”
