This immersive artist’s book is shaped around original contact sheets and film reels, bringing together streetscapes, self-portraits, and family photographs to form a determined reflection on identity and displacement.

Small Death collects photographs made by the artist Martha Naranjo Sandoval over her first years living in New York after emigrating from Mexico City. Shaped around Naranjo Sandoval’s original contact sheets and film reels, it comprises an artist’s book unfolding in tactile and iterative form. Sandoval’s work moves between streetscapes, nude self-portraits, compositions of found forms, and tender photographs of her family, all suffused with a sensitivity to the ways in which the artist’s surroundings, loved ones, and home continuously shape her sense of self and belonging. The artist’s husband, parents, and siblings are pictured in their homes as well as in more dislocating rural and urban landscapes between the US and Mexico, tracing a continuum between displacement and rootedness. Meanwhile close-up self-portraits, interspersed throughout, act as registers of the determined introspection that anchors this powerful exploration of the image sequence and book form as means of physical and sensual expression.

Details

ISBN13: 9781915087485
Format: Hardback
Number of Pages: 176
Edition:
Publication Date: 26 Mar 2024
Publisher: The School of Life Press
Publication City, Country: United Kingdom
Dimensions (cm): 24.6(H)x18(L)
Weight (gm):

Author Biography

The School of Life publishes a range of books, games and learning tools for children introducing curious young minds to brilliant ideas from psychology, philosophy, literature, science, art, architecture and beyond, that can help them grow into happy, healthy and emotionally mature adults. Our team of psychologists, writers and designers work together to produce engaging, beautifully illustrated, age-appropriate teaching that can be put to work in everyday life. We never dumb down or over-simplify; rather, trusting in the intelligence and curiosity of our young readers, we aim to make our wisdom as engaging and relatable as possible. We seek to provide what the traditional curriculum often lacks: an emotional education.

Reviews

‘A beautiful book before you even open it… I was totally engaged while reading this book and found it both original and fascinating. I can see it sitting on a display table in a school library, when, for the curious, it will spark the imagination and lead people to the joys, comfort, and genuine pleasure of reading.’ - Rosie Watch, LoveReading4Kids