This book is my record of the stories that took place from the summer of 2022 to the early spring of 2023. This was me taking a break from school during my study abroad in Germany, and these photos helped me to remember the happy and indecisive times of finding mysel!. I have been on the road in Berlin, Hirschaid, Frankfurt, Cologne and Italy, thanks to my friends Long, Junye, Selin, Andreas and Dagmar, as well as my friends in China, for giving me answers when I was lost. Hope this book can bring calmness and strength to those who are struggling and confused.
Artist Federico Hewson describes, accompanied by botanical drawings, how roses have been tools and symbols for activists and movements around the world throughout and today.
Infinity Complex Landscape is a photography fanzine documenting Yoshie Itasaka’s journey through contemporary East Ukraine landscape, its complexities and its contradictions.
“(…) It is impossible for one nation to assimilate the culture of another nation completely. Life and development of culture has various patterns.
The Culture of a creator and the culture of a borrower will continue to develop, but in different directions. All of this is often complicated by differing conditions and types.
It is wrong to identify the merger of cultures with the assimilation of a foreign culture. As a general rule, only a mixture of cultures is possible. However, despite this impossibility, many nations exert immense effort in pursuit of such assimilation… (…)”
“Europe and Mankind” by Nikolai Sergeyevich Trubetzkoy, Sofia, 1920
Yoshie Itasaka (b. 1984, Osaka) started her nomadic journey in 2010. From 2010 to 2013 the photographer traveled North America. From 2013 to 2020 she traveled the European Continent (including the Balkans, Caucasus, Russia), Israel, and Palestine.
Photos and art direction by Yoshie Itasaka Design by maho ohashi Edition of 300 copies Printed in Kyoto, Japan
50-year-olds: they’re hung up in streets, stuck in dull, damp plastic sleeves; they are taped to lampposts, to electricity substations or traffic signs, or they’re attached to trees with drawing pins.
This publication and exhibition explore the typically Dutch tradition of publicly displaying home made photo collages throughout streets and neighborhoods in celebration of a person’s 50th birthday.
Almost reminiscent of missing pet posters, amateur portrait photographs are distributed and displayed by being taped onto lamp posts and stapled to trees by friends or relatives, at the mercy of public opinion. Exposed to judgment and ridicule by friends, family and strangers, due to the usually demeaning nature of the photographs through unflattering holiday photos and the likes, individuals are exposed, raised out of anonymity and placed in the public eye.
To an extent the street becomes an exhibition space for the non art-oriented person. It’s a document of the democratisation of the public domain, through a tradition which allows artistic expression and experimentation for anyone, under the gaze of a watchful even if disengaged audience.
The presented collection of posters, possibly a study of non-intentional art under the scrutiny of the public eye, constitutes an archive and an ode to amateur, home made graphic design, made possible through the democratisation of artistic means and software such as word art, paint and clip art. A non-hierarchical demonstration of taste and aesthetic is catapulted into the streets and now gathered in the exhibition space. Perhaps involuntarily, the posters bear a sense of humour and irony to the rest of the on-looking public.