Lucian Wester
Imago Temporis
The six Imago Temporis (Image of Time) books are created out of only World Press Photo annuals. These annuals are published every year by the organization of the World Press Photo to showcase the winners of the past year. My collection from which these books are made reaches from the sixties to the zero’s and thereby combine up to half a century of press photography. By deconstructing and reassembling these annuals I am able to shift our attention from the photographic subject to the medium itself. This mixing of all years and different genres creates a distance to the original context of the photos: the informative/documentary aspect of them. It’s a process that creates an abstract layer on top of the photos though which we can explore the aesthetics that are deployed to manipulate our view upon its subject matter. In addition to the medium itself that becomes visible, the repetition of time also surfaces. Every year seems to have the same content as every other year, by mixing all those years in one the repetition of violence and human suffering is endless. The works show this repetition of time and the lack of progress.
Imago Temporis - 2018
Imago Libri
Imago Libri is the first book in a series of books that I am making out of a collection of old books bought at flea markets and secondhand shops. By cutting the old books into spreads I am able to recreate new sections that changes the context and the content of the pictures by placing them alongside other images and thereby creating a new meaning. This process is an intuitive one but the story throughout the book is more into a line that runs from natural chaos to a more human chaos and art. By rearranging the old books I give them a new live and give us a different perspective on their content.