Book of the Week: A Pick by Daniel Boetker-Smith

Book of the Week Book of the Week: A Pick by Daniel Boetker-Smith Daniel Boetker-Smith from the Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive selects Dominion by Wawi Navarroza as photo-eye Book of the Week.

Dominion. By Wawi Navarroza.

E. Stephanian, 2014.

This week's Book of the Week pick comes from Daniel Boetker-Smith from the Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive who has selected Dominion by Wawi Navarroza published by E. Stephanian.

"Dominion sees Wawi Navarroza tackle the forces of nature. Sparked by the experience of the loss of her home and studio in Manila after typhoon Glenda struck the Phillipines, Navarroza confronts the destructive and regenerative powers of nature, indeed she covers her landscapes with a burial cloth in an overt and provocative gesture. In her images she weaves a poetic depiction which is brutal, honest, and seeks to pare down the vital elements, the building blocks of this world, to try to understand them. Navarroza's work is a powerhouse of barely contained potent energy twinned with a vulnerability that makes it appear these images were taken by aliens on a fleeting visit to our planet. The way she images the earth, particularly the lava rock, the white ash, and the black sand of the volcanoes she shows, explores our continual failure to reign in the brutality of nature, and how such an attempt is always doomed to fail. She shows us the notion of control over nature is a tenuous one. In the last line of the book's short text, she says: 'Dust. Stars. Volcanic. Here we all are. Land.' Navarroza's wonderful images are of things and places out there in the world, but they talk of what is inside of us, and what we all share."—Daniel Boetker-Smith

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Dominion. By Wawi Navarroza. E. Stephanian, 2014.

Dominion. By Wawi Navarroza. E. Stephanian, 2014.

Daniel Boetker-Smith is a writer, curator, educator and artist. He is the Director of the Asia-Pacific Photobook Archive, a not-for-profit organization established in 2013 to promote and share the books of photographers from the Asia-Pacific region internationally, and to encourage the production of more photobooks in that region. He has organized photobook events at festivals, galleries, and institutions all over the world. He was a judge at the Kassel Photobook Awards in 2013. He is also co-ordinator of the Asia-Pacific Photobook Prize and a Founder of Photobook Melbourne (2015), the only international photobook festival in the Asia-Pacific region. Daniel is also the Course Director at the Photography Studies College, Melbourne, Australia.


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