Victoria Sambunaris: Transformation of a Landscape

Binh Danh was born in Vietnam and immigrated to the US in 1979. Early in his career, Danh pioneered a technique of printing images directly onto plant matter, activating the plants’ chlorophyll with sunlight. Using this process, Danh printed images associated with the war in Vietnam onto the leaves of tropical plants and grasses. Of this work, Danh explains, “This process deals with the idea of elemental transmigration: the decomposition and composition of matter into other forms. The images of war are part of the leaves, and live inside and outside of them.”

Known for his innovative approach to alternative photographic processes, Binh Danh extends and reconsiders the pursuit of pioneering nineteenth-century photographers. For almost a decade, Danh has traveled across the American West, making daguerreotypes of scenic vistas on silver plates in a mobile darkroom he calls Louis, after Louis Daguerre. Danh imbues this scenery with his distinctly personal perspective—namely, an attempt to negotiate his connection as a Vietnamese American with the landscape and history of the United States. The highly reflective surfaces of Danh’s daguerreotypes literally mirror their surroundings, embracing viewers within the idyllic environs of national sites and landmarks. This inaugural monograph features two volumes in a slipcase, bringing together all three bodies of work and a separate book of essays and memorabilia that serves to contextualize Danh's work.

“The design, photographs, and texts capture the injustice endured by the Americans who were incarcerated in the camps. And in the current climate of intolerance, it’s clear that the questions raised by Sugawara’s mother still demand answers.”

–PhotoBook Journal

Show Me the Way to Go to Home is an immersive, visual journey through the incarceration camps that held 120,000 Japanese Americans during World War II. Photographers Sandy Sugawara and Catiana Garcia Kilroy tell the story of each camp through original and archival photographs, personal stories, and government documents. It’s a frightening tale of a society that failed to protect its vulnerable.

Each camp’s story is printed on exquisite rice paper which is interwoven with dramatic landscapes. The design captures the multilayered feelings of anger, vulnerability, determination, cultural pride, and shared grief of those who lived in these camps. The book also contains an essay by Dr. Donna Nagata, Professor of Psychology at University of Michigan, who has conducted important research on the multigenerational consequences of the race-based incarceration of Japanese Americans. Today’s fragile and disturbing climate of intolerance makes it all the more urgent that this period of our history not be forgotten.

The State of Water is a physically striking volume, suggesting the monumental infrastructures many of the images depict.

— Steve Harp, PhotoBook Journal

Brad Temkin brings attention to the visual and ecological beauty of the transformation of water, by showing the structures and processes that most people do not even think about. Most storm water runoff is considered waste; yet more than 700 cities reclaim and re-use wastewater and storm water with combined sewer systems, recycling it for agricultural uses and even drinking water. As we mimic nature and separate the impurities like sludge or salt or chemicals, a transformation occurs.

Temkin is less concerned with a structure’s use, or whether the water pictured is pure or waste. He is drawn instead to the strangeness of these forms and the distorted sense of scale. Moving beyond mere description, Temkin embraces the abstract and at times surreal landscape of water transformation.

Limited edition of this book available HERE

Featuring the work of over forty artists including Michael Berman, Erika Blumenfeld, David Taylor, Basia Irland, Patrick Dougherty, Catalina Delgado Trunk, and Shelley Niro.

Introduction by Bill Gilbert
Essays by Lucy Lippard, William L. Fox, Nancy Marie Mithlo, and MaLin Wilson-Powell

Hardbound
11.5 x 10.5 inches
170 pages / 110 four-color illustrations
ISBN: 9781934435175